Something Different

From time to time, a single voice or a chorus will be lifted in Romancelandia pleading for books that are out of the ordinary in both style and content, books that are not about dukes or billionaires or feisty maidens or virginal widows, books that prompt a reader to say, “Well, that was something different.”
I will be honest and admit that I like Regency dukes and bluestocking heroines, and I have a sneaking fondness for an occasional hero who is incredibly wealthy, especially if he has a Southern accent. I am addicted to connected books and have been known to write authors begging for books that feature favorite secondary characters.

But I too sometimes yearn for a book that defies conventions, that moves me out of my comfort zone, or sends me metaphorically soaring to new heights. Here are some books that I’ve read this year that qualify.

Not Quite a Husband, Sherry Thomas
Actually anything by Sherry Thomas qualifies, but I’ll limit my comments to her most recent book. (Those of you who know me know what a sacrifice it is for me to limit my comments.) Not Quite a Husband is a road romance set in British India against the Swat Valley Uprising of 1897, and Thomas makes her readers experience the dirt, the stench, and the fear. No wallpaper setting here.

Four years older than the man she marries, the Hon. Quentin Leonidas Marsden, Bryony Asquith is no prim miss nor half-hearted bluestocking. She is a surgeon, serious about her work. When her marriage breaks up, she travels to Germany, the United States, and India, where she and Leo meet again. Leo is a brilliant mathematician, a world traveler, a playwright, and a golden charmer, but he’s not a duke.

Their relationship is just as different as they are. Bryony proposes marriage, misunderstandings for which both bear responsibility blight their marriage, crises render both vulnerable and display their strengths, and their HEA is accomplished without either heroine or hero changing essentially who they are. They are both deeply human characters who make mistakes, and those mistakes have consequences.

The non-linear structure (Flashbacks reveal Bryony and Leo’s history) and the gorgeous, near flawless prose that is one of Thomas’s strength contribute to the extraordinariness of this book.

The Madness of Lord Ian MacKenzie, Jennifer Ashley
Emotional baggage is not uncommon in romance fiction, but when is the last time you read a romance in which the hero has spent much of his life locked up in an asylum? Unable to look people in the eye, unable to follow general conversations, unable to function “normally” within his world, Ian Mackenzie has real problems. Institutionalized as a boy by a barbarous father and tormented by the “treatments” forced upon him, he gives the term “tortured hero” new meaning. Ashley balances the cruelty of his father and his keepers with the deep love of his three older brothers. It is Hart, the eldest (who is a duke) who has Ian released upon their father’s death. Ian’s suffering might have evoked pity and still have left readers unwilling to accept him as a hero, but she also shows us his quick intelligence, his love of beauty, and his directness. The reader falls for Ian as surely as does the heroine.

Beth Ackerley may not be as unusual as Ian, but she is anything but a typical romance heroine. The daughter of an alcoholic father and a sickly mother, Beth overcame poverty and its limitations to emerge as a woman of strength and compassion. She is also that rare creature a widow who loved her vicar husband and enjoyed a healthy sex life with him. Through Beth’s diary, the reader can follow her uncensored thoughts about Ian. She is fascinated by him from their earliest encounters, but she is also sufficiently frightened by him to flee to Paris. (Thus, London, Paris, and Scotland provide settings for the story.) Ashley shows Beth’s movement from attraction to fear to doubts to love in rich detail. The love scenes sizzle, but they also are integral to the characterization and story arc.

If this book is not a contender when the 2009 award finalists are announced, my confidence in the judgment of the romance community will be seriously undermined

Make Me Yours, Betina Krahn
This Harlequin Blaze Historical shows what a category romance can be in the hands of a gifted writer. Make Me Yours is a lighter in tone and slighter in length than the novels of Thomas and Ashley, but it is no less satisfying on its own terms. Mariah Eller, another widow with a happy marriage (to a country squire) runs a country inn. When the Prince of Wales (Albert Edward “Bertie,” son of Victoria—not “Prinny” who became George IV) and his posse threaten to wreck the inn, Mariah proves her resourcefulness and pragmatism by using rowdy songs and strong drink. She ends the evening by claiming a kiss from Jack St. Lawrence, the only man in Bertie’s group still sober.

Jack is more typical and less sympathetic in the beginning, but changes are in store. I ended the book thinking he almost deserved Mariah. Romps can be delicious fun or blatantly ridiculous. Make Me Yours, with its marvelous banter, sensual moments, and generous touch of tenderness is definitely delicious. Krahn left me hoping she writes more in this vein.

The Shape of Mercy, Susan Meissner
I almost blogged about this book shortly after I read it, but I was still too emotionally engaged with it to do it justice. The Shape of Mercy is not just a good book; it’s also an important one. It left me in love with the book’s heroines, determined to search out Meissner’s other books, and caught up in long, long thoughts about my own life and how I form opinions of others. Meissner has a book due for release in October. White Picket Fences will be released by Random House. I hope ir receives more mainstream coverage. This is a writer who deserves to be widely read.

The Shape of Mercy was a finalist for the American Christian Fiction Writers Women’s Fiction Book of the Year and a finalist in the Novel with Strong Romantic Elements category for the RITAs. I don’t know if that double status was a first, but I do know it is not a common combination. If you think of inspirational romances as sermons badly disguised as fiction, this is a perfect book to show you how wrong you are.

TSOM is the story of Mercy, a nineteen-year-old in Salem accused of witchcraft in 1692; Abigail, an lonely woman in her 80s whose life has been filled with loss and bad choices; and Lauren, a college sophomore from a privileged background who is struggling to become her own person. It is Mercy’s diary that links the three women. A writer in a time and place that knew few literate women, Mercy pens fanciful stories and records her thoughts about the every days and the special moments of her life—and of her arrest and imprisonment for witchcraft. Abigail, a former librarian, is a descendant of Mercy, and the diary has been handed down in her family for more than three hundred years. Abigail hires English-major Lauren to transcribe the barely legible diary.

Meissner gives the reader romances: one that defines love at its highest level, one that shows the power of love to heal, and one that reveals the first tender shoots of young love. But the book is also about the human capacity to love family, friends, and others who touch our lives. It’s about the lack of love in its largest sense that leads us to perceive others through our own flawed reflections rather than as the persons they are. Publishers Weekly called TSOM “a novel to be shared with friends.” I’m sharing it with you, my friends. I hope you’ll read it.

Do you ever long for a book that departs in some way from your usual reading? What have you read lately that merits the label “something different”?

Note: I tried posting covers of the latter two books, but I had problems with Photobucket. Sorry!

When I Want Ice Cream . . .

Sometimes I want ice cream and there is none in my freezer. I might have lemon bars, pecan pie, and peach cobbler in the fridge—and I love them all, but if what I want is ice cream, nothing else satisfies. I’m the same way about books. Sometimes I hunger for a book by a particular author. When I’m hungry for a Jo Beverley book, reading one by Mary Balogh, Mary Jo Putney, or Loretta Chase just does not satisfy, much as I love all these authors. Last week I read several books in succession that were A reads for me—Eloisa James’ A Duke of Her Own, Tessa Dare’s Goddess of the Hunt, Julie Ann Long’s Since the Surrender, Meredith Duran’s Written on Her Skin. Reading so many A’s consecutively nearly always leaves me with a fear that the next books I read won’t measure up. I had books on my TBR shelf that I expected to enjoy, but I wanted a read that I knew beyond the faintest doubt achieved excellence. I was in the mood for a particular flavor. I was hungry for a Maggie Osborne book. Nothing else would satisfy me.

So this week I have been rereading Maggie Osborne books and mourning the fact that she is no longer writing. I have heard people write about unconventional, strong heroines as if they are the creations of today’s innovative writers, but Maggie Osborne was creating such characters before “kick-butt heroine” became a buzz word. She once said, “I like to take women out of their comfortable and safe milieu and place them in challenging situations that will allow them to discover themselves and grow.” She does exactly that.

Louise “Low Down” Downe, the heroine of Silver Lining, is strong, smart, independent, and proud that she can “give as good as she gets.” The circumstances of her life have led her to think, speak, and look like a man in order to survive. At one point, she says of herself, “I’m mean and selfish. I’m cantankerous, stubborn and willful. So don’t go hanging any halos on me.” Not exactly typical heroine material. But Osborne’s characterization is so skillful that Low Down evokes sympathy from the reader who cheers for her success as she overcomes physical obstacles, emotional risks, and deep insecurities on her way to an HEA with a hero who experiences his own learning curve.

Fox of Foxfire Bride is just as atypical a heroine. She too dresses like a man, earns a reputation as a guide for people traveling in the frontier, and proves that she can shoot, fight, swear, and drink any man under the table. The goal of her life is to kill the man who is the father of the hero. The reader watches her become aware of herself as a woman and finally to accept that the difficulties she has endured have made her the woman she is, a woman she likes “just fine.” I don’t think there’s another scene in romance fiction to equal the one where she and the hero shake hands before they first make love.

The heroine of The Promise of Jenny Jones is awaiting death by firing squad when a dying woman offers to take her place on the condition that Jenny take the woman’s daughter to safety in California. What follows is the transformation of Jenny and the daughter in a gritty, funny, touching journey that ends in a totally satisfying HEA.

The transformation of Lily Dale, the heroine of A Stranger’s Wife, is even more dramatic. Her story begins just as she is released in the Yuma State Prison for Women in New Mexico territory, where she has served five years for armed robbery and assault. This is no case of a wrongfully convicted innocent. Lily is guilty of the crime. It’s a measure of Osborne’s talent that the reader is able to suspend belief as she is turned into a lady, and not just any lady. Lily has been released into the custody of a powerful king-maker who is determined to turn her into a stand-in for the missing wife of the leading candidate for the first governor of the new state of Colorado.

These are just the heroines in the books I have already reread. I still have remaining the story of Rosie Mulvehey, a dirty, smelly, perpetually hungover farmer who finds a husband by saving him from a hangman’s noose (The Wives of Bowie Stone), a dozen mail-order brides (Brides of Prairie Gold), and three women married to the same man (I Do, I Do, I Do). A veritable feast still. I love Maggie Osborne’s books. Maybe even more than ice cream.

Do you ever get hungry for the books of a particular author? Have you read Maggie Osborne? Who is the most unusual heroine that you have encountered in romance fiction?

Reading Eloisa James’ Desperate Duchesses Sestet

WARNING: THIS BLOG MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS

I am replete with satisfaction. I feel the way I feel at the end of a perfect meal when every sense has been satisfied and I revel in recalling the experience. I have just finished reading an eagerly anticipated book that more than met my expectations. When I read Desperate Duchesses in the spring of 2007, I was intrigued with the cast of characters that Eloisa James introduced in this new ensemble romance. I enjoyed Roberta and Damon’s story, I looked forward to the rest of the series, and I was most intrigued with the triangle of Jemma, Elijah, and Villiers. As I continued to read the series, I found much to admire in each book.

With An Affair Before Christmas, I loved the youthfulness of Poppy and Fletch’s Paris romance and pulled for them to resolve their problems and reunite. With Duchess by Night, I found myself intrigued by Harriet, whom I had found least appealing when the duchesses were introduced. But I adored Harriet and Jem in the cross-dressing plot, the best I’d read since Georgette Heyer’s The Masqueraders. When the Duke Returns was the most entertaining of the series with Simeon, a virginal hero, Isidore, a heroine determined to end her status as untouched bride, and the sewage system problems that had me laughing aloud.

James wove the stories of Jemma and Elijah’s estrangement and Villers’ complicated relationship with the two of them through the first four books, a strong thread in some, almost undetectable in others. However much I liked the central stories, I always found the Jemma/Elijah/Villiers thread the most compelling. At one point I feared James might allow Elijah to die and match Jemma with Villiers. By the time I knew Book #5 was Jemma’s book and Book #6 Villiers’, I knew pairing the two was improbable. Still, when I had This Duchess of Mine in hand, I quickly turned to the ending and read it first just to reassure myself.

This Duchess of Mine was wonderful! I found the developing relationship of Elijah and Jemma completely engaging. The Roman bath scene joined a list of marvelous EJ love scenes that are set in unexpected places. This book also made me appreciate more fully than any other how intricate was the structure of the series with its interlocking parties. I was also struck with how skillfully James answered the question of the simmering attraction between Jemma and Villers. In fact, in the letter I wrote to the author I said, “The recognition of a potential that fades in the light of a greater love and loyalty seemed absolutely right and authentic to me.”

Eloisa commented in her response to my letter that her editor thought A Duke of Her Own was EJ’s best book, and I knew that Kim Castillo, EJ’s assistant, thought so too. But I confess after a second reading of TDOM, I worried that Villiers’ book might be anticlimactic. Jemma and Elijah’s reunion seemed to me the emotional resolution I had hungered for throughout the series. Sure, I wanted Villiers to have his own HEA, but I thought my engagement with the characters had peaked with TDOM. At best, the last book would be pleasant, like an after-dinner coffee–delicious in its own right but certainly not the main meal.

I was wrong. A Duke of Her Own is the best book Eloisa James has written. From the opening no-holds-barred exchange between sisters to the final line with the duke carrying his duchess up the stairs, I loved this book.

First, Eleanor is perfect for Villers. She is so much herself and so Jemma’s opposite in many ways that only after I had finished reading ADOHO did I even compare the two characters. In every EJ book, I find tiny but telling bits that reveal characters in important ways. One of the things I loved most in An Affair Before Christmas was Fletch’s request that Poppy call him by his first name. James uses the name device even more potently in Eleanor and Villiers’ relationship. When Eleanor uses his given name, she sees fully—as few ever do–Leopold the man rather than Villiers the duke. His appearance near the end in the guise of an “ordinary” man reaffirms this truth so wonderfully. These two are a match for one another intellectually, emotionally, and physically.

EJ’s books always have memorable love scenes, but I think the sensuality level in ADOHO is several notches above what we have seen in other books by this author. I never thought a kiss on the hand could be so hot, but from that moment (on page 45, if you want to recheck), the chemistry between the two sizzles. Of course, the kiss Villers places on Eleanor’s hand is just the beginning. Beside a stream, on a dark balcony, or in a bedroom, the love scenes between Villiers and his heroine are hot.

Excellent secondary characters are another constant in the books of Eloisa James. ADOHO doesn’t disappoint in this respect either. Sister Anne is great, and even Astley, the “bad guy” deserves some sympathy by the end. But Tobias, the oldest of Villiers’ illegitimate children, and Oyster, the pug, are the ones who won my heart. I thought for a moment Oyster might break said heart.

Add to all of these praise-worthy attributes James’ usual intelligent, lucid writing and the literary allusions that delight my English-teacher’s heart and you have a near-perfect book. And if, like me, you would love a last look at all the heroines and heroes of the series, Eloisa has promised just that in an extra chapter that will be available on her web site in September. That’s only another thirty-four days or so.

Are you a fan of connected books? Have you ever had fears about the end of a series, only to have it exceed your expectations? Most important, have you read A Duke of Her Own yet?

Christmas in July: A Romance Reader’s Version

According to Reuters, major retailers are celebrating Christmas in July in an attempt to work holiday magic on slumping sales. Sears and Kmart (owned by the same company) are pushing holiday ornaments and stocking stuffers online and in brick-and-mortar stores. Toys R Us is on the sleigh ride too, giving away candy canes and offering tempting discounts on Santa’s-list favorites such as bicycles, doll houses, and video games.

I’m a last-minute Christmas shopper myself, so I won’t be rushing out to join the summer Christmas shoppers. The story did start me thinking about Christmas, and I can’t think about Christmas without thinking about Christmas books. Hmm . . . If retailers can celebrate Christmas in July, why can’t booklovers? The answer is obvious, and I pulled out a dozen plus of my favorite Christmas books for my personal celebration. Most of these are old favorites that I have read again and again.

A Carol Christmas (Harlequin American Romance #321), Muriel Jensen
Jensen’s sweet, sentimental, tear-evoking tale is one that I probably would avoid as just too much if it were not a Christmas story. Carol Shaw is a woman who lost nearly everything; she finds some comfort in her job as a housemother at a Catholic orphanage that is about to close. Mike Rafferty, brother of the Mother Superior, is a baseball player who has suffered a career-ending injury. He comes to the orphanage to consider where his life is going without the role that defined him. Of course, they earn their HEA. Add some likable kids with heart-breaking stories, a nun who is questioning her vocation, a curmudgeonly caretaker, and a lively assortment of Rafferty family members, throw them all together for Christmas, and you have a Christmas classic with an ending worthy of Miracle on 34th Street and It’s a Wonderful Life. I have read A Carol Christmas every year since it was published in 1989.

Under the Mistletoe, Mary Balogh
This collection includes four previously published novellas (“The Star of Bethlehem,” “The Best Gift,” “Playing House,” and “No Room at the Inn”) and one new story, “A Family Christmas.” All stories are set in Regency England at Christmastime, and all feature children prominently. “The Star of Bethlehem” is the story of a married couple, Lord and Lady Lisle, whose marriage is on the brink of collapse. When the Lady Lisle’s diamond disappears and a young chimney sweep comes into their lives, husband and wife rediscover each other. In “The Best Gift” the heroine Jane Craggs (a Jane Eyre type) is asked to escort one of her pupils to her uncle’s home for Christmas and is thus given the opportunity to teach her student a more important lesson than any learned in a classroom. She unites a cynic with his illegitimate daughter and achieves her own Christmas dream and fairy tale ending. “Playing House” is the story of Lilias, the elder sister in a family about to be separated. She asks her one-time sweetheart, the Marquess of Bedford, for one last perfect Christmas for her orphaned brother and sister. In granting the gift, Bedford receives happiness for himself and his own lonely daughter. “No Room at the Inn,” focuses on travelers stranded by bad weather at an isolated inn where Christmas will take on new meaning for all of them when a homeless young couple arrives, the young woman heavy with child. In “A Family Christmas” Elizabeth who married the son of a wealthy merchant, to save her parents from debt and her husband Edwin have the chance to overcome the Big Mis and become a real family and achieve real happiness.

Christmas Revels, Mary Jo Putney
Putney’s Christmas collection is a blend of the old and the new, the historical and the contemporary. “Christmas Cuckoo” finds Meg Lambert picking up a very drunken Major Jack Howard at a coach stop and taking him home for Christmas, although he is the wrong Jack Howard. Lord Randolph Lennox, whom some will recognize as Alys Weston’s penitent fiancé from The Rake, needs “Sunshine for Christmas.” He finds the sunshine in Naples where he also finds Elizabeth Walker, an English governess who serves as his guide to Naples and to matters of the heart. Seamstress Nicole Chambord suddenly finds herself without work or home in London in “The Christmas Tart.” Desperate, she allows herself to be purchased as a “gift” for Sir Philip Selbourne, who sees through her charade and gives her an HEA. In the best of the old, Putney offers a version of “Beauty and the Beast” in “The Black Beast of Belleterre,” the story of James Markland, a scarred recluse, and the lovely Ariel. In “A Holiday Fling,” Putney adds a new story that is loosely connected to her contemporary trilogy. British actress Jenny Lyme calls upon friend and former lover Greg Marino to help film a Christmas play and save a building. The fling turns into forever for two likable characters.

Winter Fire, Jo Beverley
Miss Genova Smith is accompanying the elderly Trayce sisters to Rothgar Abbey for Christmas. The sisters hope to mend a long estrangement between the Mallorens and their dead mother’s family. The road to reconciliation is complicated by an abandoned baby to the plot and a forced engagement between Genova and the Trace sisters’ other nephew the Marquess of Ashart (almost a match for Rothgar). Rothgar in a mood of benevolence makes the book worth reading, and Beverley includes Christmas touches that are genuinely moving. This is not properly a Malloren book, but it does belong to the Malloren world; part of it is set at Rothgar Abbey where the Mallorens, or most of them, are gathered for Christmas.

Once Upon a Christmas, Diane Farr
Celia Delacourt is nearly destitute after the loss of her entire family to a bout of deadly food poisoning. A distant relative Her Grace the Duchess of Arnsford arrives to groom Celia for marriage to John, the future Duke and the heir to the grand house known as Delacourt. The Duchess’s son and a distant cousin to Celia, Jack Delacourt, an old hand at evading marriage, decides the best way to foil his mother’s plans is to act like a fool and an empty-headed fop. Celia thinks he is mad, but she falls in love with him anyway; Jack thinks Celia is unlike any woman he has ever known. And as lively and appealing as their love story is, the almost-villainess but ultimately sympathetic Duchess nearly steals the show. This was re-issued last winter.

A Matchmaker’s Christmas, Donna Simpson
The matchmaker of the title is Elizabeth, Comtesse Bournard, an old woman approaching her eightieth year and filled with regret for her selfishness. She schemes to insure the happiness of the three people who mean the most to her: her companion, Beatrice Copeland; her godson, Sir David Chappell; and the Reverend Mark Rowland, who spent a summer with her many years earlier after his parents died. The romance between Beatrice and David is the most unusual. Beatrice is approaching forty and David is forty-seven. Twenty years, an old and unhappy love story, and a big secret have to be overcome for these two to have their HEA. She will have to forgive herself just as David forgives her. Verity Allen and Lord Vaughn are more conventional sparring lovers, but Mark and Lady Sylvia Hampton, daughter of an earl, face almost insuperable barriers to their happy ending. Lady Bournard’s matchmaking schemes do not work out according to her plans, but in the end those she loves are happy and she rests well pleased.

Twelve Days, Teresa Hill
Rachel and Sam McRae have been married for twelve years, but their marriage is unraveling because of devastating losses and a lack of communication. As the Christmas season approaches in the picture-perfect town of Baxter, Ohio, the doorbell rings and Rachel’s Aunt Miriam, a child welfare worker, arrives with three children, ranging from a baby to a pre-teen girl, who have been found in a hotel room alone. Rachel reluctantly agrees to keep the children. There are only twelve days until Christmas, only twelve days for Rachel and Sam to rediscover their love for one another and to discover all the things that family can mean. The kids are the heart of this two-hanky read.

Christmas Belle, Mary Balogh
Isabella Gellee, a widow with two children and a famous actress, who once fled a censorious England and a jealous lover, returns to England. She ends up starring in an amateur theatrical while at a house party hosted by the grandparents of the lover from whom she fled. The hero, Jack Frazier, is cast as Othello opposite Isabella’s Desdemona, provoking the audience within the novel to weep “for the world beyond innocence, where love did not always bring happiness, where there could be so many misunderstandings and tragedies because people would not talk openly with each other–even with those they loved.” The novel’s narrative of jealous insecurity and accusations of adultery echoes Othello, but these lovers, older and wiser than they were, get a second chance, largely because Isabella cannot “understand Desdemona” and feels compelled to fight against unjust accusations and for her happiness. Balogh is practically a cottage industry when it comes to Christmas stories. I think this is one of her best.

Shenandoah Christmas (Superromance, 1024), Lynette Kent
Singer Cait Gregory returns to her hometown to help a pregnant sister on bed rest and ends up directing the Christmas pageant in which ten-year-old Maddie Tremaine is the announcing angel. Maddie’s father, Ben Tremaine, a Christmas Grinch, falls for Cait whom he fears is an unattainable star. But Christmas miracles abound in this story, and one of the miracles has Cait and Daniel’s names on it.

Miracle on I-40, Curtiss Ann Matlock
Lacey Bryant is hoping for a Christmas miracle; she wants to come home to Pine Grove, North Carolina, to introduce her kids to their grandparents. When her friend, long haul driver and fiftyish widower Pate Andrews, who was taking the three Bryants across the country along with his load, broke his leg, his friend Cooper reluctantly agrees to take over. The journey down Interstate 40 slowly converts Cooper from a bah-humbug guy into a true believer in Christmas, in love, in miracles.

Christmas on Snowbird Mountain (Superromance #1094), Fay Robinson
Lonely Susannah Pelton has decided to add meaning to her life by fulfilling the long-delayed goals of her life, one of which is to “create something beautiful and lasting.” She sees a beautiful mosaic created by North Carolina artist Ryan Whitepath and asks if he will give her art lessons. Ryan refuses at first, but his grandmother, Nana Sipsey, has had a vision that predicts a wounded redbird will come to help Ryan’s troubled daughter Nia. Susannah’s gift as a natural nurturer and the connection between Nia and Susannah change Ryan’s mind. He and his family are descendants of the few Cherokees in the area who managed to avoid the Trail of Tears removal, and the Cherokee culture adds a different note to this Christmas love story. More poignancy is added by the fact that it is the last book of Fay Robinson (a.k.a. Carmel Thomaston), the founder and owner of Painted Rock Writer’s Colony and two-time Rita winner.

Those Christmas Angels, Debbie Macomber
This is another of Macomber’s much-loved Christmas stories featuring Goodness, Mercy and Shirley. In this novel, the three angels are assigned by Gabriel to answer the prayer of Anne Fletcher, who is heartbroken and impoverished by her husband of more than two decades, who divorced her to marry their son’s fiancée. Anne’s prayer is not for herself but for her son. Roy has become an embittered man as a result of the double betrayal. With a little help from Shirley, Goodness, and Mercy, Roy meets physical education teacher, Julie Wilcoff. The angels bend the rules as always, but they bring love and happiness to two deserving people in this feel-good story.

A Season for Miracles and Some Enchanted Season (Bethlehem Series), Marilyn Pappano

A Season for Miracles introduces the reader to the town of Bethlehem, a mythical all-American small town enhanced by the presence of guardian angels. Emilie Dalton is in need of a guardian angel. She left her home and her job in Atlanta to move to Boston to care for the children of her drug-addicted sister. To keep the children from a foster care system that she has good reason to distrust, Emilie runs away with the children, and they end up in Bethlehem where they find shelter in a vacant house. When Emilie is mistaken as the niece and heir of the house’s former owner, the desperate family settles in long enough to enjoy Christmas in the snow-covered, warm-hearted town where they are adopted by two elderly neighbors and befriended by Nathan Bishop, a local lawman. Emilie’s deceit is discovered, but love conquers all with some heavenly intervention.

Some Enchanted Season , a more complex book than ASFM, features a subject that many romance writers consider taboo, adultery. One Christmas Eve, Maggie McKinney discovers her husband’s unfaithfulness and storms out of their Bethlehem home, a choice that ends in her wrecking her car and suffering serious head injuries and loss of memory. Ross McKinney, a man who has been reminded of what truly matters, takes his wife back to Bethlehem and the house that Maggie had loved to help her regain her memory. Old memories, both good and bad, resurface; Maggie and Ross slowly come to know each other again and to rediscover their love for one another. Then, Maggie remembers the betrayal that led to her accident. Can she forgive? The answer in a romance, particularly one set in an angel-guarded town at Christmastime, is a foregone conclusion, but the McKinneys’ journey to healing and forgiveness is an emotional story.

Then there are the 2009 Christmas books I am most eagerly anticipating:

The Perfect Christmas, Debbie Macomber (a matchmaking tale)
Lakeshore Christmas, Susan Wiggs (Lakeshore Chronicles #6—a librarian, a former child star, and a Christmas pageant)
The Heart of Christmas: “A Handful of Gold,” Mary Balogh; “The Season for Suitors,” Nicola Cornick; “This Wicked Gift,” Courtney MilanThe first two are reissues: the Balogh is a virtuous-miss-mistaken-for-a-lightskirt story, and the Cornick is a reunion-with-a-rake tale. Both are solid stories, but the one I can’t wait to read is Courtney Milan’s debut publication.

All three books will be released at the end of September/first of October. Fans don’t have long to wait.

Are you celebrating Christmas in July by shopping or reading? Do you have a favorite holiday romance? What’s on your must-buy list for fall?

A Little Fact in My Fiction

This week I read Betina Krahn’s latest book, Make Me Yours, a book that sparkles with humor and superlative characterization. It is a refreshing book for several reasons. First, it’s not a Regency-set romance; it takes place in 1887, the Golden Jubilee year of Queen Victoria. Then there’s the heroine, Mariah Eller, an innkeeper (How many innkeeper heroines have you encountered in romance?), who is also an intelligent, practical, adult woman. Her first marriage, although not young love’s dream, gave her a healthy appreciation for her sexuality. She uses her intelligence in ways that seem believable for a widow faced with her situation in the late Victorian Period. The hero, Jack St. Lawrence, grows into a man who deserves this remarkable woman.

History and fiction intersect in Make Me Yours. Albert Edward, eldest son of Victoria and Albert, Prince of Wales, known to his intimates as “Bertie,” is a secondary character, one central to the book’s plot. Sometimes real-life historical characters in fiction pull me out of the story. Too often the fictional characters appear to have little connection with the historical figure. But Krahn’s Bertie accurately reflects what I know of the man who became Edward VII of England, a man known for his love of good food, horse racing and theater and for his affairs with many women, actresses Lillie Langtry and Sarah Bernhardt and legendary American beauty turned British aristocrat, Lady Randolph Churchill among them. Krahn’s portrayal of the Prince of Wales gives the story a rare credibility.

Reading Make Me Yours, I recalled other historical romances that used real-life characters to enrich the story. Carla Kelly employed Beau Brummell in Mrs, McVinnie’s London Season. Jeannie McVinnie, another widow with happy memories of her husband, is hired to shepherd the niece of Captain William Summers through a London season. Jeannie wins Brummell’s approval and thus assures her social victory. While there is nothing in that plot point that has not been done by many other Regency writers, Kelly’s Brummell is more a flesh-and-blood figure than are the one-dimensional Brummells usually found in the pages of romance.

Anne Gracie’s Gallant Waif contains one of my favorite scenes in romance fiction: the ballroom scene when Kate is being humiliated because of the scandal in her past. But the young soldiers that Kate once nursed and their relatives lend her their support, and the crowning moment comes when Wellington appears and strolls with Kate around the ballroom, praising her gallantry to all they meet. In this case, fiction is more powerful than fact for me. I have read that Wellington was a cool snob, but the benevolent hero in Gracie’s novel is the Wellington I prefer, and Gracie makes me believe in him. The real Wellington was known for his devotion to his men, so perhaps the fictional Wellington is not so far-fetched after all.

Do you like a heavy mix of history with your historical romance? Do you like encountering actual historical figures within the fiction of historical romance? What authors blend history and romance with the greatest skill?

More Books to Celebrate

One of the things non-romance readers never understand about the genre is how great a variety romance readers enjoy. The releases of June 30 affirm this fact. Historicals, contemporaries, romantic suspense—pick your favorite. All romance readers have reason to celebrate.

Surrender to the Devil, Lorraine Heath

This is the third of Heath’s Oliver-Twist inspired novels that feature the grown-up street urchins of Feagan’s gang. Heath consistently wins praise for her skillful writing, and her latest trilogy has the distinction of protagonists who play against genre conventions. This tale of Frannie Darling and Sterling Mabry, the eighth Duke of Greystone seems likely to please Heath fans. Romantic Times gave Surrender to the Devil 4.5 stars.

You can read an excerpt here.

For the Earl’s Pleasure, Anne Mallory
I admit I’m a soft touch when it comes to the friends-into-lovers theme, so I was pleased to see that Anne Mallory makes use of the theme in her new book. Both the estrangement between Valerian Danforth, Lord Rainewood and his closest childhood friend Miss Abigail Smart and the paranormal element make Mallory’s treatment of the theme different. Romantic Times gave For the Earl’s Pleasure 4.5 stars, but some readers have complained about the paranormal line. I vote for reading it and making up your own mind.

You can read an excerpt here.

Kill for Me, Karen Rose

OK, I confess to being a wimp. Karen Rose scares me into nightmares. Like Allison Brennan, she crafts stories that could be linked to the evening news. Kill for Me follows Scream for Me and Die for Me, continuing the story of the troubled Susannah Vartanian and Georgia Bureau of Investigation special agent Luke Papadopoulos in another dark, gritty thriller. Publishers Weekly lauded the “complex plot” and Romantic Times made it a Top Pick.

You can read an excerpt here.

Four Dukes and a Devil , Sophia Nash, Cathy Maxwell, Tracy Anne Warren, Elaine Fox, and Jeaniene Frost

I think putting writers from different subgenres together in an anthology is a smart idea. Four Dukes and a Devil went on my list because I read everything Sophia Nash writes and I’ve read and enjoyed Cathy Maxwell and Tracey Anne Warren. But I am only slightly familiar with Elaine Fox’s contemporaries, and I’ve never read Jeaniene Frost. I’m sure others, who are unfamiliar with the historical authors, will buy the book because it includes Fox and/or Frost. I hope they all gain new readers and we see more mixed genre anthologies. Romantic Times gave this one 4.5 stars.

You can read an excerpt from Nash’s novella “Catch of the Century” here. (Note to Nash fans: The heroine is Victoria Givan from Love with the Perfect Scoundrel.)

In addition to the Super Tuesday releases, other new releases this week that are on my TBB list, include Susan Andersen’s Bending the Rules (another Romantic Times Top Pick), Victoria Dahl’s Start Me Up (which WriteChic Kelly and Courtney Milan have already raved about), Betina Krahn’s Make Me Yours (which got a B from Dear Author), Pamela Morsi’s Red’s Hot Honky-Tonk Bar (4.5 stars from RT), and Christine Wells’ Wicked Little Game (4.5 stars from RT). I think I may have enough to read to keep me happy until June 28 when A Duke of Her Own hits the shelves.

So what are you reading this week? What have we left off our list of books to celebrate?