2013 TBR Challenge - Scoundrel

I read Warrior, the first book in this series, ages and ages ago, and bought the whole series as a "boxed" set when it was on sale for Kindle, again quite awhile back. And I've been hoarding it ever since, as I often do with books I know I'll enjoy, but where the author didn't leave me with a strong enough cliffhanger that I have to read the newest book the nanosecond it comes out. (I'm looking at you, Diana Gabaldon, for leaving poor Jem Mackenzie literally in the dark! And you too, George RR Martin, not to name any names lest I spoil TV viewers, but that last major character maybe-death!) Having a few hoarded books gives me a sense of security that I'll never be trapped on a long flight or, worse, holed up in an airport under a weather delay and lack for something entertaining to read.

Anyway, Archer's Blades of the Rose series is fantasy romance with steampunk elements, set in an alternate late 19th century where magic exists and the Blades of the Rose fight to ensure that each nation gets to keep their own magical legacy against the Heirs of Albion, who want to control all the world's magic so the sun will really REALLY never set on the British Empire. They're sort of Indiana Jones with lots of sexytimes--rollicking swashbucklers where good is good, evil is evil, and the characters hurtle from one death-defying adventure to the next.

I picked up Scoundrel now because the October theme for the 2013 Romance TBR Challenge is Paranormal Romance. I didn't like it quite so much as Warrior because of the different hero archetypes involved--Warrior's hero is a rough-around-the-edges soldier who falls for a highborn woman, which I love. (Mmm, Sharpe!) Bennett Day in Scoundrel is more your typical romance novel womanizing rogue, which is much less a fantasy of mine. That said, I loved the heroine, and the swashbuckling was dandy. And speaking of dandies, I'm looking forward to Catullus Graves' story in Stranger. He's the inventor of all the handy gadgets the Blades team uses, and he's a black Briton, which draws my interest since two of my own most recent manuscripts have featured black British characters.

2013 Reading, Books 91-93

91) Pink and Blue: Telling the Boys from the Girls in America, by Jo B. Paoletti

My daughter, age 9, is a tomboy, as I myself was at her age. Given the enormous strides women have made toward fuller equality and success in traditionally male professions, it's startling how much more gendered clothes and toys are now than during my 1970's and 80's childhood. Photos of me show a kid in the same reds, oranges, greens, and yellows boys were wearing, and while boys played with GI Joe toys and girls played with dolls (I didn't--I preferred toy horses), things like blocks, Lincoln Logs, and Legos weren't gendered. Now girl clothes run heavily to pink and ruffled, and toys are gendered as can be. I'm proud to say Miss Fraser scorns these trends, and will proclaim that everyone should play with, wear, and watch whatever they like. But it's still tough to shop for her.

So this book caught my attention. It's a history of children's clothing from the late 19th century to the present--from the days when babies of both sexes wore the same white dresses and boys kept wearing skirts, albeit usually with masculine detailing, through their preschool years, to the unisex trends of the 60's and 70's, all the way up to how today's trends look to be a backlash against the unisex clothing today's generation of parents wore as children. Fascinating stuff--e.g. did you know in the early 20th century there was debate over which color belonged to each sex? Many were of the opinion blue was better for girls, being a delicate color associated with the Virgin Mary, while pink as a shade of red was the more manly color.

92) Winter Woman, by Jenna Kernan.

I've had this book on my TBR shelf for ages--it's part of my library's collection of donated paperbacks with a "please return when finished" sticker slapped on the cover...and I, um, kinda hoard them. (I also regularly donate boxes of books to be either sold at the Friends of the Library Book Sale or added to the return-when-finished collection, so hopefully it balances out.)

Anyway, I decided it was high time I started weeding through my borrowed collection and returning them to the wild, so I grabbed this one, read the first few pages to see if it was any good, and was promptly hooked. It's a Western romance, but one set in the 1830's, before the heyday of the cowboy. The heroine is a widow who survived a winter alone in the Rockies (she and her husband were left behind by their missionary wagon train who promised to return for them, only everyone but her ultimately died), and the hero is a trapper. The book is an all-around good read--fast-paced, adventurous, and romantic.

I'd never heard of Kernan before, and since the romance writer community is a smallish world, I feared that meant she was no longer active. (This book is copyright 2003.) But when I googled her I discovered she's an active and prolific writer with a good-sized backlist for me to explore. Which is why libraries are good things for authors. I tried her because I'll grab pretty much anything that halfway appeals to me of the "please return when finished" rack, but I'll be buying her works in the future.

93) Scoundrel, by Zoe Archer.

For the 2013 TBR Challenge. Detailed post to follow.

Summer reading, continued

I'm now up to 58 books read on the year, 10 of which count toward my library's summer reading program.  Miss Fraser is kicking my butt in that regard--she's up to 24. Even allowing for the fact a lot of hers are manga and graphic novels, she's turning into one bookish kid, I'm proud to say.  Her chapter books are from the Warriors and Wolves of the Beyond series, neither of which is short or easy for a rising third grader.

Anyway, my latest reads:

55) Lessons After Dark, by Isabel Cooper. This is Cooper's second book, a sequel to No Proper Lady. Unlike many fantasy romance authors, Cooper gets the balance of romance and fantasy just right, with solid world-building. This book isn't as fast-paced and high-stakes as her debut, but it's still well worth reading, IMHO.


56) Captain Vorpatril's Alliance, by Lois McMaster Bujold. Properly speaking, the book doesn't release till November, but Baen is selling eARCs directly from their website, and I couldn't resist.

It's a fun, lovely book, and I enjoyed seeing Ivan in an adventure of his own, revealing himself when out of Miles's orbit to be capable and intelligent in his own more deliberate and level-headed style. It's something of a romantic comedy of manners meets crime caper story, and while I'd rank it below my all-time favorites, Memory and A Civil Campaign, I'll definitely be re-reading it.


57) Watching Baseball Smarter, by Zack Hample. For the most part, this book just confirmed that I'm already a fairly savvy fan, but I learned some new things. I'd never noticed that all catchers are right-handed, for example, and I'm surprised singing "Take Me Out to the Ball Game" during the seventh inning stretch only dates to 1971, since the song itself is so much older.

58) Hearts and Harbingers, by Olivia Waite, is an erotic historical romance novella, one that, frankly, is more explicit than I'd feel comfortable reading as a steady diet. That said, the writing is polished and the heroine in particular an engaging character, so if you like super-hot reads, I recommend it.

I'm a cover quote!

Last year Isabel Cooper asked me to read her upcoming debut romance with a view to providing a cover quote. I was happy to do so, and even happier to discover that No Proper Lady is well worth recommending.



The image I was able to download isn't big enough for you to see it, but I'm right there on the bottom of the cover, telling you this book contains "high-stakes magical adventure with wonderful characters and a sexy romance."

It's a time travel story where a woman from a post-apocalyptic future goes back to the Victorian era to try to prevent the events that set the apocalypse in motion, and what I especially appreciated about it is that the fantasy elements were just as strong and well-developed as the romance ones. But if you don't want to take my word for it, Publishers Weekly agrees, and RT Book Reviews gave it 4.5 stars.

No Proper Lady officially releases tomorrow, but it looks like the print version is already shipping.

Friday Find: Late to the Zoe Archer party

Right at the beginning of September, my Twitter feed was buzzing about Zoe Archer's new book, Warrior. I flagged the title for future reference but didn't rush straight out and buy it.

I ended up putting it on a list for my daughter to take to Barnes & Noble to get me a Christmas present. She wanted to get me a book and actually go to the store to buy it, so I picked out a few titles that were recently released and not terribly obscure (and therefore likely to be in stock). She picked Warrior because she liked the cover and title best. That's my kid for you. She's 6, but she's already all about the adventure stories. (The others on the list were Emily and the Dark Angel, by Jo Beverley, and several nonfiction titles.)

Anyway, I picked up the book with some trepidation, because so many times I've tried a book the majority of readers seem to love and I just don't get it at all. But this book works. It's historical fantasy romance with a good balance of all three. The deviations from the timeline and expected historical behavior feel justified by the fantasy aspects, which are well thought out. And unlike in a lot of books merging romance and adventure, I neither felt the characters were letting their love distract them from High Stakes and Mortal Peril, nor that the love story was tacked on at the end.

Warrior is first in the four-book Blades of the Rose series, which were released one per month through December. I bought the series as a Kindle bundle, and I'm saving them up for my next plane ride or when I'm stuck and need something reliably good to read.

Welcome, Vivi Andrews!

Today's guest is Vivi Andrews, whose novella No Angel is available from Carina now (and can also be bought as part of the paranormal holiday anthology Winter Wishes).



1. You have quite a few books out! Any advice for those of us who are just starting out? Things you wished you’d known before your first or second or third sale?

I don’t really have any “if I’d only known” regrets – I’ve been really lucky to stumble blindly along a good path. My best advice is to be open to unexpected opportunities. There isn’t only one way to become a successful author and the best path for you might not be the one you originally envisioned. Adaptability is key. My strategy is to always keep pushing myself to write better and continue to seek out new opportunities. So far I’m loving the results.

2. No Angel isn’t your usual Christmas story. What gave you the idea?

Believe it or not, No Angel started out as my spin on A Christmas Carol. The Dickens classic has always been my favorite Christmas story and I wanted to twist it around and make it new while blending it with paranormal romance themes. At its heart, Scrooge’s story is all about trial-by-fire redemption and being given an opportunity for a new beginning, and those were the elements I carried through into Sasha & Jay’s journey to Hell and back on Christmas Eve.

Though, admittedly, by the time I was done with it, No Angel didn’t bear much resemblance to A Christmas Carol. Angels flying around Hollywood, demons tempting us all to land on Santa’s naughty list, a little visit to Satan’s house… not so Dickensian.

3. If you could pick the actors to play the hero & heroine in the movie of your current release, who could you cast?

Wow, that’s a hard one for me. Jay is tall, dark and dishy – so perhaps that guy who played Superman? Brandon something or other? But with more of an edge. I feel like there’s probably some insanely hot Italian actor who would be perfect for the role. One with some intense smolder going on.

And Sasha is a tough-girl to the core, but she looks like a princess. Michelle Rodriguez doesn’t have her coloring, but that’s the right attitude, so she’d probably be my first choice. Or Jessica Alba with a gun. Oooh, or the girl who played Kate on Lost. She’d be fabulous. I love the mix of hard and soft all those women are so adept at portraying.

4. If one of your characters came knocking on your door, how would you react?

Sasha is my kind of girl – sarcastic and crunchy on the outside, with a gooey center. I’d love to hang out with her for a day, especially if I could get her to teach me some of her stunt-girl tricks. Jay would be fun to hang with too, just so I could gaze at him, but the demonic minions? They’d be less welcome. J

5. Who was the last author whose writing wowed you?

Nalini Singh continues to knock me over with her awesomeness, Eloisa James gives me little shivers of delight, but my most recent glom was for Kristan Higgins. I feel like I was the last chick in Romancelandia to discover her, but dang can that woman write! She can make my throat tight with emotion on one page and have me giggling on the next and all with this sense that I can really see the events happening, see the story coming to life. Such skill. Can I be her when I grow up?

6. What book is your comfort read?

I really adore Pride and Prejudice, which I’m afraid is cliché, but it’s true. There’s just something about that book that hits all the right notes with me. A guaranteed home run every time.

My favorite books are always those that mix humor, intellect and heart and Pride & Prejudice is a prime example of that.

7. What are your Desert Island movies?

Oh, wow, so many. Definitely Philadelphia Story with Katherine Hepburn & Cary Grant. The Last of the Mohicans for the gorgeous score alone. Chocolat, Noises Off and The Princess Bride because I love them more every time I see them.

8. Anything you’d like to ask my readers?

I'm definitely in a holiday mood these days, so my burning question is: what's the holiday tradition that makes the season glow for you? Or, if you aren’t feeling the holidays, which would you rather have try to romance you: an angel or a demon? Thanks so much for having me round to visit, Susanna!

(If you'd like to read an excerpt of No Angel, click here.)