RITA Season, Part 4: Romance Novella

The 33^rd Annual Conference of the Romance Writers of America will be held in Atlanta July 17-20. The 2013 RITA winners will be announced on July 20.

The posts that I’ll be sharing on alternate Saturdays between now and July 13 will be self-indulgent, romance-fan posts.  I’m going to be looking only at the categories in which I have read most of the finalists and talking about the books I have read with a nostalgic glance at some favorite winners from the past and a few gripes about treasured books not included among the current finalists. I hope you’ll join me and share your own totally authentic, equally subjective views

Romance Novella: The Past

The RITA for best romance novella is a fairly recent addition to the awards. “Starry, Starry Night,” a ghost romance by Marianne Willman in Once upon a Star, an anthology headlined by Nora Roberts, won the first RITA in this category in 2000. I haven’t read all of the winners by any means, but four of the winners are by authors whose books I regularly read. 

 2002 Best Romantic Novella "I Will" by Lisa Kleypas from Wish List 

Lisa Kleypas has been on my auto-buy list since the 1990s, and this novella is one of her redeemed hero tales. Andrew, Lord Drake, the hero of “I Will” is the dissipated, drunken half-brother of Logan Scott (Because You’re Mine, 1997). In this novella, Andrew, in an effort to prove himself a reformed character to his dying father and thus be reinstated in his will, convinces the prim and proper Miss Caroline Hargreaves to participate in a sham engagement. Great sexual tension and memorable characters make this one a winner for me. This is my friend Santa’s all-time favorite novella, another reason for me to acknowledge this novella as special.

2008 Best Romance Novella “Born in My Heart” by Jennifer Greene

in Like Mother, Like Daughter

Already suffering from a slight case of empty-nest syndrome, Anne, the mother of an adopted daughter, fears losing her daughter when the college student locates her birth mother and wants a relationship with her. But Anne discovers not only that her daughter knows that her mother is the woman who loved her and shared a life with her but that her husband is a treasure she has been overlooking. A tender, heartwarming story with Greene’s usual likeable, believable characters and emotional punch, this is one of my favorite Mother’s Day stories.

2010 Best Romance Novella "The Christmas Eve Promise" by Molly O'Keefe in The Night Before Christmas

Merrieta Monroe has always sworn that she would not end up in Webster Groves working at the family diner, but when her family needs her help and she dumps her cheating fiancé, she comes home. Now if she can just deal with her big secret, the Monroe holiday extravaganza, and Gavin McDonnell, a part of her past she can’t forget, she’ll be fine. This story had me at line one: “Within moments of walking downstairs to the diner, Merrieta Monroe was violently assaulted by Christmas.” The story that follows made me laugh, sigh, and blink away a few tears. A gender-bending Santa, a troubled teen angel, and an old flame reignited all help make this a different but beloved Christmas read.

2012 Best Romance Novella I Love the Earl by Caroline Linden

Connected to Linden’s The Truth About the Duke series but set a generation earlier, this is the story of Margaret de Lacey, who finds herself the target of fortune hunters when her brother Francis inherits the dukedom of Durham. Francis settles a dowry of 40,000 pounds on Margaret, who, still single at the advanced age of thirty, expects to remain unmarried. Rhys Corwen, Earl of Dowling, needs a wife with a fortune, but he finds that Margaret’s fortune is the least of the reasons he needs her in his life. This is a wonderful story with two mature characters who behave sensibly and romantically. I like this full series, but the novella is my favorite.

Romance Novella: The Present

I’ve read four of the six finalists in this category and enjoyed them all.

 The Duchess of Love by Sally MacKenzie

 I read this novella because it was offered free on Amazon, and it worked the way authors hope the freebies will. I liked it enough to buy Bedding Lord Ned. Andrew, the Duke of Greycliffe decides to enjoy the freedom from his title when a new housekeeper mistakes his older cousin for the duke. But when he meets Venus Collingswood skinny dipping in his pond and falls for her, he makes the mistake of letting her think he is a plain mister, cousin to the duke, a lie he pays for later. All ends happily, however, and as readers discover in Bedding Lord Ned, Venus and Andrew become the parents of three sons who are the heroes of three novels in the Duchess of Love series. I liked Andrew, who is anything but an arrogant duke, and I adored Venus, who, in a reversal of the usual, is the misfit in her family because she is not bluestocking. This is a light-hearted, fun read.

“Room at the Inn” by Ruthie Knox in Naughty & Nice

 Ruthie Knox’s stories are hotter than mu usual fare, but I can’t resist her characters. “Room at the Inn” is a clever rewriting of It’s a Wonderful Life in which Carson Vance, who can’t wait to leave his hometown of Potter Falls, New York, travels the world building embassies for the Foreign Service, and his college girlfriend, Julie Long, a wealthy Manhattanite, falls in love with the small town, finding in Carson’s parents the family for which she longed and becoming an integral part of the community. For a decade, Carson and Julie were involved in an intermittent affair, “tumbl[ing] into the past with a lurch of nostalgic lust” every time Carson returned for a brief visit. Six years ago, his mother guilted him into ending the affair, but the chemistry between the two is as powerful as ever. Carson is home for the first time in three years, trying to help his dad get on with life after the death of Carson’s mother. The ending is predictable, but the journey is lusty and complicated by a mix of emotions. Leo Potter, the antithesis of Mr. Potter of movie fame, is a delicious addition to this sexy Christmas story.

Seduced by a Pirate by Eloisa James

 This was my favorite novella of 2012. Sir Griffin Barry, a secondary character in The Ugly Duchess, is on his way home after spending almost half his lifetime at sea. Married at seventeen shortly before he jumped out a window and out of his new wife’s life, he was a pirate by eighteen. Four years later, he was captain of the feared Flying Poppy, named for the wife he left somewhere near Bath. Fourteen years later, he’s returning with a limp, a blue poppy tattoo on one cheekbone, a pardon from the king who has declared him a privateer rather than a pirate, and a case of nerves almost the equal of those that rendered him impotent on his wedding night. Going home seems to be his only option, but he has serious qualms about the reception he’s likely to receive from the wife he left behind. Griffin and his lady are quite a pair. For fourteen years, he’s thought his wife’s name was Poppy; for fourteen years, she’s thought her husband was short, slight, and unprepossessing. They discover they are both wrong. I smiled from the first page to the final scene, only stopping when a grin or a giggle replace the smile.

“The Valentine’s Curse” by Jodi Thomas in Be My Texas Valentine

 Nobody does Texas settings and misfit characters better than Jodi Thomas. She gives readers both in this tale of a Valerie Allen, a twice-widowed heroine whose touch is believed to curse a person with death, and Brody Monroe, a Yankee cowboy in post-Civil War Texas. The two outcasts meet at a Valentine’s dance and watching them fall in love in this marriage-of-convenience story is a delight.

I have not read two of the finalists: Breathless by Sophie Jordan and “Sleeping with a Beauty” by Leslie Kelly in Once Upon a Valentine.

Romance Novella: The Missing

Thanks to the proliferation of e-novellas, I am reading many more than I used to, although I still read far fewer novellas than novels. Many of those I do read are connected to novels. That is the case with all three of the 2012 novellas that I feel are missing from the RITA list of Best Romance Novella.

The Governess Affair by Courtney Milan

Hugo Marshall, son of a coalminer, former prizefighter and current secretary of the Duke of Clermont, is known as the Wolf of Clermont, a man who makes his employer’s problems and inconveniences disappear by any means necessary. The immediate problem is Serena Barton, a woman Clermont describes as a servant who seduced him. Hugo doubts Clermont’s veracity, but that doesn’t lessen his determination to rid his employer of the obstacle to reconciling with his wealthy bride and the subsequent 500-pound payment that represents a giant step toward the fulfillment of Hugo’s ambition to become wealthy and powerful. Serena, who was raped and impregnated by Clermont when he visited the family who employed her as a governess, refuses to be just another ruined woman who silently accepts what was done to her. Since Clermont ignored her when she confronted him, she decides to sit on a bench in front of his house until she receives justice and recognition. The conflict between the goals of Hugo and Serena makes them antagonists, but this role is eroded as they come to know and care for one another. This is a smart, complex, emotional story beautifully written. It is a prequel to Milan’s The Brothers Sinister series.

The Second Seduction of a Lady by Miranda Neville

 Eleanor Hardwick, an independent woman with a great respect for common sense and very little respect for the institution of marriage, is visiting in Somerset, having responded to an urgent summons from her father’s second cousin, the Honorable Mrs. George Brotherton, whose detestable character Eleanor can tolerate only because such tolerance is the price she must pay to enjoy the company of her delightful seventeen-year-old cousin, Caroline Brotherton. While she is in Somerset, Eleanor meets the man who five years earlier for a brief time separated her from her common sense persuaded her that she was as wildly in love as even the romantic Caro could hope for. Max Quentin, who is spending a few weeks in Somerset winding up his guardianship of young Robert Townsend, has spent five years regretting a foolish bet that he accepted against his better instincts because he needed the money, and he has never stopped longing for a second chance. Both Max and Eleanor are intelligent strong-minded, and imperfect, qualities I associate with most of Neville’s characters. I loved them both and particularly enjoyed that they were a bit older than the typical hero and heroine. Reunion romances are my favorites, in part because I like a hero and heroine who share a history. And this second seduction is marvelous. The Second Seduction of a Lady serves as a prequel to The Importance of Being Wicked, the first book in Neville's late-Georgian quartet about art collectors.

“All I Want for Christmas Is You” by Molly O’Keefe in Naughty & Nice

 This bittersweet story, a prequel to O’Keefe’s Crazy Thing Called Love, Book 3 in her Crooked Creek Ranch series, is an atypical romance novella in any season, particularly at the Christmas season. Maddy Baumgarten is two days away from her eighteenth birthday, the day after Christmas, when she is planning to elope with Billy Wilkins, 20. Maddy has a loving, supportive family who has great hopes for their bright young daughter whom they expect to become the first person in the family to attend college. Billy, whose family is financially and emotionally impoverished, is a second round draft pick in the NHL. He has his ticket out of the life he has known, and he wants Maddy with him. Even without the knowledge from book 2 in the series that these Maddy and Billy suffer a devastating divorce, the extreme youth of the protagonists and evidence of Billy’s temper are enough to make a reader question the HEA. O’Keefe has the gift of creating characters so real the reader’s heart aches for them. That ache is amplified in this story. It is flawlessly written and wonderfully risky. Both qualities merit recognition.

Are you reading more novellas? What was your favorite of 2012?

Rita Season, Part 3: The Long Contemporary Series Romance

The 33^rd Annual Conference of the Romance Writers of America will be held in Atlanta July 17-20. The 2013 RITA winners will be announced on July 20.

The posts that I’ll be sharing on alternate Saturdays between now and July 6 will be self-indulgent, romance-fan posts.  I’m going to be looking only at the categories in which I have read most of the finalists and talking about the books I have read with a nostalgic glance at some favorite winners from the past and a few gripes about treasured books not included among the current finalists. I hope you’ll join me and share your own totally authentic, equally subjective views.

Long Contemporary Series: The Past

It should come as no surprise to anyone that Nora Roberts was a repeat winner in the early years of this award, with RITAs for This Magic Moment (1984), A Matter of Choice (1985), and One Summer (1987), all of which I read. Other repeat winners who were favorites include Cheryl Reavis for A Crime of The Heart (1989) and Patrick Gallagher’s Widow (1991), Kathleen Korbel for The Ice Cream Man (1990), A Rose for Maggie (1992), and A Soldier’s Heart (1995), and Ruth Wind for Reckless (1998) and Meant to Be Married (1999). Another favorite among the winners of that period is Dragonslayer (1994) by Emilie Richards. Harlequin has practically made an industry out of Nora Roberts reissues, and so I’m sure all those titles are still available in both print and digital formats. Amazingly, among the others, only Reckless is available as an e-book. I’d buy them all in a heartbeat if I could download them to my Kindle. Most are on my keeper shelves, but after years of rereading, they are shabby and tattered. I don’t even dare reread A Rose for Maggie and A Soldier’s Heart, two of my all-time favorites, again for fear they will fall to pieces. 

Fortunately, all of these authors are still writing. Nora Roberts has been a fixture on bestseller lists for ages, Cheryl Reavis has a new book releasing next month, An Unexpected Wife (Live Inspired Historical), and Kathleen Korbel, aka Eileen Dreyer, has a new Drake’s Rake book, Once a Rake, available in late October. Ruth Wind aka Barbara O’Neal won’t have a new book on shelves until The All You Can Dream Buffet releases in May of next year, but, if you haven’t read it yet, I highly recommend her June 2012 book, The Sleeping Night, written as Barbara Samuel. I reviewed Emilie Richards’s soon-to-be-released Somewhere Between Luck and Trust earlier this week.

Coming Home to You may be Fay Robinson’s only RITA winner (2002) in this category (She won in 2001 for Best First Book) in her tragically brief career, but all five of her books are well worth reading. Sadly, only The Notorious Mrs. Wright and Christmas on Snowbird Mountain, reissued in 2011 as The Wish List (Harlequin Heartwarming) are available as e-books. I especially wish Harlequin would issue her first book, A Man Like Mac, in digital format.

The three most recent winners in this category are all authors whose books I always eagerly anticipate. Janice Kay Johnson won in 2008 for Snowbound, and she is a double finalist in this category for 2013. This has been an incredibly prolific year for Johnson. She has had three Superromances released already: A Hometown Boy (January), Anything for Her (March), and Where It May Lead (May), with two more scheduled From This Day On (August) and Bringing Maddie Home (November). She has also self-published three novellas: Dangerous Waters, Home Field Advantage, and All Through the House with a fourth as part of a Harlequin Christmas anthology, The Christmas Wedding Quilt, to be released November 1. (This is a don’t-miss book with stories by Sarah Mayberry and Emilie Richards as well.) Karen Templeton, who won in 2009 for A Mother’s Wish and in 2011 for Welcome Home, Cowboy, is also a finalist this year. I loved A Marriage Campaign (2013), the conclusion to her Summer Sisters trilogy. Beth Andrews won in 2010 for A Not-So-Perfect Past, part of her Serenity Springs series. This year she introduced a new series: Talk of the Town, the first book in her Shady Grove series was published in April. What Happens Between Friends, Book 2, will release in August, with the third book, Caught Up in You set for December. There was no Long Contemporary Series category in 2012.

Long Contemporary Series Romance: The Present

This is the only RITA category in which I have read all the finalists. I read a lot of Superromances, and five of the eight nominated books are Superromance titles. Four of the six nominated authors are writers whose books I always check out. The downside to all this is that with so many authors I love and books I enjoyed in competition, I can’t pick a favorite for which to cheer. 

 

  

A Cold Creek Noel by RaeAnne Thayne is the eleventh book in Thayne’s Cowboys of Cold Creek series. Although I prefer Thayne’s non-category books, she has a gift for creating characters that I care about. I’ve read most of the Cold Creek books and found them engaging. This one is no exception. It’s a heartwarming story of two wounded people, two believable kids, a generous serving of extended family, and lots of dogs. The Cowboys of Cold Creek series includes a number of Christmas stories, and Caidy Bowman and Ben Caldwell’s story is a strong addition to the group.

From Father to Son by Janice Kay Johnson is the middle book in A Brother’s Word trilogy features a dour detective with heavy baggage, a heroine with heavy burdens, and two kids and a dog who are real heart stealers. I probably would have liked Niall MacLachlan and Rowan Staley’s story even if it hadn’t been written by JKJ, but her ability to create engaging, credible characters and add twists to the plot makes this another memorable book by this author. I also liked the other books in the trilogy, Between Love and Duty and The Call of Bravery; the latter is actually my favorite of the series.

A Gift for All Seasons by Karen Templeton is the second of the Summer Sisters books. Templeton says in a letter to her readers that the character of Patrick Shaughnessy was inspired by J. R. Martinez, the former soldier turned actor who was severely burned during his service in Iraq. Templeton was beginning April’s story as Martinez was winning Season 13 of ABC’s Dancing with the Stars, and the idea for her hero was born. Of course, Martinez is eons ahead of Patrick in self-acceptance and the courage to live life. These are the lessons Patrick learns over the course of the book, lessons that his family, Lili, and, most of all, April Ross have to teach him. This was one of my favorite Christmas stories of 2012.

A Life Rebuilt by Jean Brashear concludes her 2012 MacAllister trilogy, but my love affair with the Montalvo/MacAllister family goes back to the first Brashear book. Jenna MacAllister, the adored younger sister of Diego and Jesse Montalvo and Cade and Zane MacAllister, is an effervescent optimist who deserves the nickname her father gives her, Sunshine. Roman Gallardo, tormented by all he saw as a member of an Army Special Forces team in Iraq, has become a recluse who runs through the night streets to keep himself in shape and works on restoring the house he grew up in. Jenna’s innocence and idealism capture Roman’s interest, when he saves her a second time, the bond between them strengthens. But Roman can’t believe the darkness that surrounds him can be overcome even by the brightness that is Jenna—until she shows that she’s strong enough to save him as surely as he saved her. This novel is filled with characters who show brokenness and courage can co-exist.

Making Her Way Home by Janice Kay Johnson is not one of my favorite books by JKJ, but that has more to do with the fact that child in jeopardy books make me a basket case than it does with the book’s quality. Detective Mike Ryan is a stubborn, honorable, compassionate hero who gets past the walls Beth Greenway has in place, hardly surprising given her abusive childhood. He gets her through the harrowing experience of her niece’s kidnapping and shows her an HEA is possible.

No Ordinary Joe by Michelle Celmer features a heroine with big dreams of making it in Nashville and a hero with a history of women who leave him. Reily and Joe are warm, winning characters, Joe’s daughter is a darling, and Paradise, Colorado is a place I’d love to visit. I’m a fan of small-town romances and sweet love stories that show the extraordinary in the ordinary. This book qualifies on both counts.

Out of the Depths by Pamela Hearon is a reunion story complicated by class issues, and it’s set in Kentucky, not a common setting. I also have a fondness for photographer protagonists. These facts earned this book three stars from before I read the first page. This was fortunate because when Kyndal Rawlings and Chase Brennan are trapped in a cave for four days, I was tempted to bail. Just the thought was enough to give me nightmares, but I persisted and found this a rewarding story. I found Kyndal with her tenacity and vulnerability the more sympathetic character, but Chase redeems himself, especially when he finally puts his father in his place.

A Texas Chance by Jean Brashear is the first book in the new MacAllister series. Cade MacAllister, an adventure photographer, has spent twenty years wandering the world and taking photographs of some of its most beautiful and inaccessible spots. Cade returns home after an accident on a shoot leaves his friend dead and Cade critically injured. He is also burdened with guilt so severe that he has lost his passion for photography. Sophie Carlisle is used to depending only on herself. Orphaned at fifteen, left alone again after the death of her husband and three-year-old daughter in an automobile accident, she has built a life devoted to her work, allowing only a very few friends into her inner world. Wounded characters in need of healing and fighting it every step of the way are Brashear’s specialty. I loved the reluctant vulnerabilities of Cade and Sophie, and I loved seeing them achieve their HEA. Catching glimpses of all Cade’s extended family as they come together to help Sophie and her reaction to the big, loving family made this book even more special.

Long Contemporary Series Romance: The Missing

It’s harder to argue for a book that should have been in a list of best books in its category when the list of finalists includes so many beloved authors. Certainly there are long contemporary romances I loved that I would have liked to see included. Among them are the following:

Bring Him Home, Karina Bliss’s third Special Forces book that offers her usual engaging, adult characters and with its story of grief and second-time-around love adds a greater emotional richness

The Long Shot, Ellen Hartman’s story of a pro basketball player who ends up coaching a girls’ basketball team, a bad girls’ basketball team, with all its complex layers of bad memories, illiteracy, and fraternal relationship plus a romance that is an unusual pairing.

Unexpected Family, Molly O’Keefe’s sequel to His Wife for One Night (2011), that takes a pair of failures and makes them a hero and heroine who triumph without losing their authenticity as complicated, flawed human beings.

But my top category read of the year, and the book I sorely miss on this list, is Sarah Mayberry’s Within Reach. It’s not only my favorite in a long list of Mayberry keepers, but it’s one of those books that resonated with me so powerfully that I still think about it many months after having finished it.

Mayberry’s characters always seem real; they behave like adults who know what it is to hurt, to dream, to grow. And Mayberry has the knack for giving her readers romances with plenty of sizzle without making the characters appear to have the libidos of adolescent males. But Within Reach goes beyond her usual excellent romance to present a powerful and moving look at grief and recovery.

Because the reader meets and likes Billie Young in the prologue and sees her interacting with her husband Michael and their children and with her best friend, Angie Bartlett, the empathy evoked for both Angie and Michael has a dimension it would lack had Billie been merely a name. The unrequited love for a best friend’s spouse or lover that blossoms into mutual love after the death of the friend is standard fare in romance fiction, and it has been handled skillfully by some authors, disastrously by others. But what Mayberry does is different, and I think more difficult. Before Billie’s death, Angie and Michael’s relationship is solely through Billie. They like one another, but they define one another in terms of Billie. Angie sees Michael as Billie’s husband; Michael sees Angie as Billie’s best friend.  This removes any sleaze factor from what happens later, and it allows Mayberry to show their relationship develop gradually with the emotional connection strengthening as the sexual tension increases.

The intimacy between them grows naturally from the time they spend together, from their mutual commitment to the children Eva and Charlie, from the honest conversations they have, and from their concern about each other’s well being. And Mayberry never oversimplifies the process. The relationship, emotional and physical, is a series of advances and retreats, and both Angie and Michael struggle with feelings of guilt and disloyalty each step of the way. Within Reach is an unforgettable book.

Do you read Harlequin Superromance or Special Editions or some other long contemporary category romance line? If so, what was your favorite long contemporary series romance novel of 2012?

RITA Season, Part Two: Historical Romance

The posts that I’ll be sharing on alternate Saturdays between now and July 6 will be self-indulgent, romance-fan posts.  I’m going to be looking only at the categories in which I have read most of the finalists and talking about the books I have read with a nostalgic glance at some favorite winners from the past and a few gripes about treasured books not included among the current finalists. I hope you’ll join me and share your own totally authentic, equally subjective views.

Historical Romance: The Past

RWA could have just called the Golden Medallion (as the awards were called for their first eight years, 1982-1989) for Best Historical Romance the LaVyrle Spencer Award in the early years. She won half of the Golden Medallion given in this category. The Endearment (1983), Hummingbird (1984), Twice Loved (1985), and The Gamble (1988) were all winners, and Morning Glory won the overall award, Best Romance of 1989, in 1990.

Today when we think of historical romance, we equate the term most often with European historicals, most of them set in the Regency period. But for much of RITA history, Americana and Western romances ruled. All of Spencer’s RITA winners were American-set historicals, as were the winners in 1986 (Not So Wild a Dream by Francine Rivers), 1989 (Sunflower by Jill Marie Landis), 1992 (Courting Miss Hattie by Pamela Morsi), 1996 (Something Shady, also by Morsi), 1997 (Conor’s Way by Laura Lee Guhrke), and 1998 (Promise of Jenny Jones by Maggie Osbourne). In addition to these other Americana and Western titles won RITAs as Best Short Historical. Among these were To Tame a Texan’s Heart (1995) by Jodi Thomas, Always to Remember (1997) by Lorraine Heath, The Mistress (2001) by Susan Wiggs, and The Texan’s Reward (2006) by Jodi Thomas. Westerns have enjoyed something of a resurgence recently, but I miss the Americana novels. A great essay by Stephanie Mittman, who wrote some wonderful Americana novels, on the appeal of that subgenre can be found at All About Romance. 

 

In addition to the American-set winners, there are also some unforgettable medievals on the list of RITA winners in historical romance.  I’ve reminded people several times recently that I was reading Robyn Carr when she wrote historicals, long before the Virgin River series. Carr won the Golden Medallion for Best Historical Romance in 1987 for By Right of Arms, a medieval set in France. Julie Garwood’s The Bride, the 1990 winner, is set in 12^th-century Scotland, the 1993 winner, Penelope Williamson’s Keeper of the Dream in 12^th-century Wales, and Barbara Samuel’s Heart of a Knight, 1998’s Best Short Historical, is set in 14^th-century Britain.

It wasn’t until 1999 when Connie Brockway’s My Dearest Enemy was proclaimed Best Long Historical Romance that European historicals began to dominate this award. Two classics in the genre won earlier—Mary Jo Putney’s Dancing on the Wind in 1995 and Loretta Chase’s Lord of Scoundrels (Best Short Historical) in 1996, but every winner since My Dearest Enemy has been set at least partially in England; most of them in the 19^th century. These winners include 2000-- Silken Threads by Patricia Ryan (12^th-century England), 2001--Devilish by Jo Beverley (Georgian England), 2002--The Bridal Season by Connie Brockway (Victorian England), 2003-- Stealing Heaven by Madeline Hunter (14^th-century England and Wales), 2004--The Destiny by Kathleen Givens (17^th-century Scotland), 2005--Shadowheart by Laura Kinsale (14^th-century England and Italy), 2006--The Devil to Pay by Liz Carlyle (Regency England), 2007--On the Way To the Wedding by Julia Quinn (Regency England), 2008--Lessons of Desire by Madeline Hunter (Regency England), 2009--The Edge of Impropriety by Pam Rosenthal (Regency England), 2010--Not Quite a Husband by Sherry Thomas (1890s India and England), 2011--His at Night by Sherry Thomas (Victorian England), and 2012--The Black Hawk by Joanna
Bourne (1794 and 1818 Paris and London).

Historical Romance: The Present

I keep hearing that the historical romance is in trouble, but new additions to my keepers and the number of historicals in my TBR stack don’t suggest any shortage of great historical romances. When I considered my favorites in this category, I realized that I have a weakness for stories that use a conventional trope but give it a twist, strong heroines, characters that are not high-ranking aristocrats, and novels that are part of a series. I can see at least one of these qualities in the five finalists that I have read in this category. 

 

Bride by Mistake by Anne Gracie is a marriage of convenience tale with a difference: Lieutenant Luke Ripton is an idealistic nineteen-year-old when he comes upon a girl, hardly more than a child, being attacked. To protect her from a greedy relative determined to force the thirteen-year-old Isabella into marriage, Luke married her himself and leaves her in a Spanish convent. Eight years later, Luke, irrevocably changed by the war and with a newly inherited title, arrives at the convent to take his bride back to England. He expects to find what he imagines is a typical convent-trained wife—demure, silent, and obedient. Isabella is none of these things, as Luke will discover during their journey across Spain, tangling with danger, building a friendship, and falling in love. Gracie with her gift for crafting stories that move me to tears and laughter is a never-fail author for me. This is the fifth book in her Devil Riders series, which I love.

A Lady Never Surrenders by Sabrina Jeffries is the conclusion to The Hellions of Halstead Hall. It’s not my favorite of the series, in large part because I don’t like the person Grandmother Hetty becomes in this one, but I do like Celia and Jackson, individually and as a couple. I like the romance across classes, and I really like that Celia is not a girly-girl heroine. I’m happy to see Sabrina Jeffries, an autobuy author for me, on this list. I still wonder why How to Woo a Reluctant Lady wasn’t a finalist in 2010.

When an author creates characters so real that I talk to them, I consider the book a winner. Sarah MacLean does exactly this in A Rogue by Any Other Name. Even though I wanted to strike Bourne at times for being so obsessed with revenge that he hurt Penelope, he was always deeply, multi-dimensionally human to me. And I loved the strength and grace of Penelope. She is one of the best examples I know of an appealing secondary character in one book who becomes even better than expected when she gets her own story.

Too Dangerous to Desire by Cara Elliott, book #3 in her Lords of Midnight series, is a good girl-bad boy romance, and it is a reunion romance, my favorite trope. Elliott is particularly good a balancing the mystery/adventure plot with the romance, and the former is especially intriguing because Sophie, vicar’s daughter, is an unpredictable choice for a blackmailer’s victim.

Jade Lee gives her readers a pair of wonderfully unusual characters in Wedded in Sin, the second book in her Bridal Favors series. Samuel Morrison, second son of a baron, is a supremely rational, highly intelligent man who assumes the role of a jokester. Penny Shoemaker is a pragmatic, middle-class heroine, who is forced to design shoes secretly because she is female. Like Samuel, she hides behind a façade. Part of the joy of this book is that these two atypical characters are able to see beyond the created personae by which their worlds identify them.

Finalists in this category that I have not read are Beauty and the Bounty Hunter by Lori Austin, Defiant by Pamela Clare, and The Recruit by Monica McCarty. I’ve heard good things about all three of them. But not even the most voracious reader can read all the good books available, and I am not a candidate for that title. For now, these are on my Maybe Sometime list.

Historical Romance: The Missing

I read more historicals than any other subgenre of romance. I could easily compile a top 25 list of historicals I have loved in any given year. I though 2012 was a particularly strong year because there were so many excellent debut authors. Since this post is super long already, I will mention only six historicals that I think deserve to be on this list. These are books to which I gave highest marks, and I know from reviews, conversations, and best of lists that they are books that are beloved by many other readers.

        

A Week to Be Wicked, Tessa Dare

This road romance featuring a bespectacled bluestocking, Minerva Highwood, and a charming rogue, Lord Colin Payne, is a delight, showcasing Dare’s undervalued humor and giving readers another reason to make the Spindle Cover series a favorite. I think it’s the best book Dare has written, including RITA winner A Night to Surrender, and I count all Dare’s books keepers.  Both Publishers Weekly and Library Journal included it in their Best Romances of 2012 list.

A Gentleman Undone, Cecilia Grant

At times, an almost painfully dark story, Grant’s second novel takes two characters whose lives have been shaped by the guilt they bear and pairs them in a story that operates with the genre’s conventions while twisting them at every turn. There is nothing unusual in a hero who is a veteran psychically scarred by war or a courtesan heroine, but there is nothing predictable about the real guilt Will bears and his commitment to atone for his error in the only way he can. Nor is there anything predictable in a heroine who sells herself as a means of self-destruction. And Grant’s prose places her among the best in the business. A Gentleman Undone was on Library Journal’s Best of 2012 list.

The Ugly Duchess, Eloisa James

A brilliantly written take on the Ugly Duckling fairy tale, The Ugly Duchess features an ugly duckling who transforms herself into a swan with still tender scars underneath her glorious feathers and, in a reverse move, a handsome, popular swan who transforms himself into a scarred ruffian shorn of his feathers. I loved the reverse transformation, loved that Theo was the architect of her makeover, and loved that however the world saw her, James never saw Theo as anything but beautiful. The Ugly Duchess was named one of Booklist’s Best of 2012.

  

 A Notorious Countess Confesses, Julie Anne Long

This seventh book in Long’s Pennyroyal Green series may take the prize for the most unusual couple of the year. Adam Sylvaine, the hero, is a vicar who not only quotes Biblical passages but also writes sermons, prays privately, and feels privileged to serve his parishioners. Yet he is also a man, with a man’s passions and flaws and vanities. The heroine, Evie Duggan, Countess of Wareham, is an Irish lass who loves her family fiercely, who knows how to talk to a child terrified of a drunken father and to an uncertain young woman who longs to know the secret of inspiring love in a man. She is also an actress, a courtesan, and a countess by virtue—or rather the lack of virtue—of being won in a card game. This is Long at her best—and her best is amazing.

His Very Own Girl, Carrie Lofty

That this is a romance set in World War II makes this book stand out from the thousands of historicals published in 2012. That its heroine is a pilot for the English Air Transport Auxiliary, its hero a medic in the American Infantry makes it more extraordinary. From the music to the clothing to the food to the emotions the characters experience, this novel pulls the reader into the 1940s. As I read this book I hummed, I wept, I smiled, I wept again, and I wished passionately that this book would find the audience it deserved. A RITA nod would have helped.

Ravishing the Heiress, Sherry Thomas

I’m not even going to pretend to be objective on this. Sherry Thomas published three romances in 2012, each of them compelling stories with characters who came to life, each of them written in staggeringly beautiful prose. All of them deserve highest honors, but Ravishing the Heiress is my favorite and Millie one of my all-time favorite heroines. My favorite line in the novel is a comment Venetia, Fitz’s sister and heroine of Beguiling the Beauty makes to Millie, who has paraphrased with some bitterness Byron’s claim that “Friendship is Love without his wings.” Venetia answers her: “No, my dear Millie, you are wrong. Love without friendship is like a kite, aloft only when the winds are favorable. Friendship is what gives love its wings.” Millie and Fitz discover that truth.

Now it’s your turn. How many of these finalists have you read? Do you have a favorite in the category? What missing historical titles would you have included?

  

RITA Season: Part 1 (Single-Title Contemporary)

In March calls went out informing seventy-five authors that their books had been named finalists for the 2013 RITAs, romance fiction’s most prestigious awards. Winners in eleven categories will be announced July 20 at the 33^rd annual conference of the Romance Writers of America. I know some romance readers—even some romance writers—pay little attention to these awards. And while I’m certainly no expert on the selection process, I know enough to know that the oft-repeated comparison to the Oscars is misleading since there is no RWA equivalent of voting within branches (writers for writers, actors for actors, film editors for film editors, etc.) by which the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences selects finalists or for all active members to vote for the winners. If I understand the RITA process correctly, finalists and winners are determined by small panels of judges. While I’m sure the judges make every effort to be fair and objective, I’m skeptical enough to think personal tastes and histories are bound to be a factor.

Now I don’t mean to rain on anybody’s parade. I’m an awards junkie, and since I spend considerably more time reading and writing about romance fiction than I do watching movies or television or listening to the kind of music that is the focus of most of the music award shows, the RITAs are the awards I’m most interested in. Whatever the process, they are the industry awards with the greatest cachet. I cheer wildly when favorite books and authors are recognized, regret the shortsightedness or questionable taste that ignored some deserving recognition, and check out unfamiliar finalists that I might find rewarding.

The posts that I’ll be sharing on alternate Saturdays between now and July 6 will be self-indulgent, romance-fan posts.  I’m going to be looking only at the categories in which I have read most of the finalists and talking about the books I have read with a nostalgic glance at some favorite winners from the past and a few gripes about treasured books not included among the current finalists. I hope you’ll join me and share your own totally authentic, equally subjective views.

Contemporary Single Title Romance: The Past

 


Checking past winners of the RITA for Best Contemporary Single Title Romance, I was surprised to see how many writers have won more than once. Nora Roberts predictably is on the list of multiple winners. One of her triple Hall of Fame positions is due to her winning the Rita in this category for Public Secrets (1991), Private Scandals (1994), and Born in Ice (1996). Another Hall of Famer, Susan Elizabeth Phillips, practically owned the award for a while, winning for Nobody's Baby But Mine (1998), Dream A Little Dream, and First Lady (2001). More recently, Rachel Gibson (True Confessions, 2002; Not Another Bad Date, 2009) and Kristan Higgins (Catch of the Day, 2008; Too Good to Be True, 2010) have each won twice. One of this year’s finalists, Barbara Freethy, won in this category with her debut book, Daniel’s Gift, in 1997. It’s still my favorite Freethy. I’ve read all those listed above, some of them several times.

If I could grant a personal Worth Reading and Rereading in Any Year award to the three RITA winners in this category, I’d present my award to Again (1995) by Kathleen Gilles Seidel, No Place Like Home (2003) by Barbara Samuel and Bet Me (2005) by Jennifer Crusie.

• Seidel is an author I sorely miss. Till the Stars Fall, astoundingly not a RITA winner, is one of my most reread books, but I love Again almost as much. Since the heroine is a Georgette Heyer-loving chief writer for a soap opera set in Regency London and the hero plays a duke in said soap opera, reading Again is almost like getting a contemporary and a historical in one book. Seidel proves that romance can be intelligent, funny, and sigh-worthy at the same time. Will somebody please digitalize Seidel’s books? My copies are falling to bits, and I’d pay trade pb prices to have them on my Kindle.
• I’d read a McDonald’s ad if Barbara Samuel wrote the copy, and No Place Like Home is one of my most beloved reads ever. Even though it is classified as contemporary romance, it is a good fit with the women’s fiction titles this Hall of Fame author has written as Barbara Samuel and as Barbara O’Neal. This powerful, emotional first-person tale features a heroine who ran away with a musician and returns more than two decades later, still estranged from her father, with a seventeen-year-old-son and a gay best friend dying of AIDS. Her hero, a wanderer named Malachi, is the brother of the best friend.
• Back when the Eloisa James/Julia Quinn bulletin board was alive and several thousand strong, we ran a poll for the romance of the decade, a book that set a standard by which others would be judged. Crusie’s Bet Me was the undisputed winner. With a zaftig heroine, a hero who gives her Krispy Kremes and loves her as she is, and a cat named Elvis, this one is funny, sweet (unexpectedly so for a Crusie), smart, and irresistible—within a hair’s breadth of perfect IMO.

Contemporary Single Title Romance: The Present

 


  

This is one of the categories in which I have usually read most of the finalists. This year I’ve read six of the eight. One thing that most of my favorite contemporary authors have in common is their ability to create characters who are imperfect, in process, and at home in the 21^st century. For me, it’s particularly important that these qualities hold true for the heroine, and the heroines in these six finalists satisfied on all counts.

• About Last Night by Ruthie Knox: I love that Cath enjoyed her work at the Victoria and Albert Museum, that she speculates about other passengers on the tube, and that she is determined to become a new Cath because she made some bad choices as the old Cath.
• Barefoot in the Sand by Roxanne St. Claire: Lacey is a survivor. She survived a bad relationship, a hurricane that left her home in pieces, and life with a teenage daughter. She survives because of her own toughness and tenacity but also because she has great friends who show up when she needs them, who call her on the excuses she gives to avoid action, and who love her at her best and her worst.
• Forever and a Day by Jill Shalvis; Lucky in Love by Jill Shalvis: Shalvis is terrific at creating heroines who, like most of the women I know from teenagers to octogenarians, are full of contradictions. Grace (Forever and a Day) is a bit of a ditz, but she’s also smart intellectually and emotionally.  Mallory (Lucky in Love) is a classic good girl who wants to let her inner bad girl loose. They are also funny. I like heroines who make me laugh, the kind of genuinely affectionate, I’m-glad-I-know-you laughter that my good friends inspire. Grace and Mallory evoke this kind of laughter.
• Sugar Springs by Kim Law: I’m no fan of self-abnegating heroines, but experience has taught me that love sometimes requires sacrifices. I have a particular fondness for heroines who reshape their dreams to fit unexpected choices they were forced to make. Lee Ann is this kind of heroine, and it’s all the sweeter when, against huge odds, she gets her HEA.
• The Way Back Home by Barbara Freethy: Emotions can be messy, and where grief is concerned, they can also be ugly. Women in fiction and in life are sometimes denied free expression of such feelings. Freethy allows Alicia to be angry and even cruel as she struggles with her brother’s death five days before he was due to end his enlistment in the Marine Corps. Toxins have to be released before healing can occur. Alicia’s actions ring true to me.

Melt into You by Roni Loren and Zoe’s Muster by Barbara Hannay are also finalists in this category. I haven’t read these books. I checked them out. Melt into You sounds too edgy to be in my comfort zone, but I plan to read Zoe’s Muster if I can find it at the library or if it turns up as a Daily Deal.

Contemporary Single Title Romance: The Missing

Surely I’m not the only romance reader who reads the list of nominated books for any of the big awards and thinks well, that’s great, but what about X. It should be on the list. We can’t know why all our favorites don’t become RITA finalists. Perhaps some of them were not even entered by their authors or publishers. Here are seven (in alphabetical order by author) that I consider contenders for the Best Single-Title Contemporary Romance of 2012:

• Somebody to Love, Kristan Higgins: Parker’s back but she lost her money and gained a hero, the last one she expected to fill the role. This book is genuinely funny in KH’s signature style and an interesting what-if.
• About That Night, Julie James: Smart, funny, sexy, and contemporary in the best sense of all that word means, this novel offers a heroine you feel like you know and a hero you can’t forget.
• Rainshadow Road, Lisa Kleypas: Sibling rivalry, a couple who actually communicate, and wonderful touches of magical realism make this one of Kleypas’s best and riskiest books. I loved it!
• All Summer Long, Susan Mallery: This is my favorite in this long-running series (and I’ve read every one). Clay and Charlie are richly drawn with layers of complexity and likeability. And the gender reversal is spot on.
• When Snow Falls, Brenda Novak: A heroine and hero neither of whom is powerful and wealthy or even middle-class make this a rare story indeed.
• Can’t Buy Me Love, Molly O’Keefe: This is the debut single-title for this amazing writer who gives the reader deeply flawed characters who challenge each other, grow and change, and win the readers’ hearts.
• Barefoot in the Rain, Roxanne St. Claire: A terrific story that has important, even profound things to say while still managing to be all a romance should be.

Now it’s your turn. How many of these finalists have you read? Do you have a favorite in the category? What missing contemporary titles would you have included?