Summer Reading 2013

Officially, the first day of summer is June 21, but all the signs of summer are present and accounted for at my house. It’s a humid 80 degrees with afternoon thunderstorms forecast, the grands are out of school, we’ve already had picnics and cookouts, Braves baseball accounts for a steady stream of conversation, and the summer reading program at the local library is in full swing. Oh, yes, it’s definitely summer here.

My reading calendar is just one more piece of evidence that summer has begun. I have almost one hundred books on my TBR list for June, July, and August. I’ve already read nineteen of them. (See the bolded titles on the list below.) I can tell you that you have some wonderful books coming to bookstores near you this summer. I’m reading Carolina Girl by Virginia Kantra today, and I have another ten books from the list waiting on my Kindle. (See titles marked with an asterisk.) I’ve already reviewed a few of these books. You will see the rest here At Just Janga, at The Romance Dish, or at GoodReads over the summer months.

I’m particularly excited about new books from Susan Crandall (Whistling Past the Graveyard, a coming-of-age story with a nine-year-old narrator set in 1960s Mississippi, set for release  on July 2) and Pamela Morsi (Love Overdue, a romance with a sedate Kansas librarian who is longing to free her Inner Vixen, set for release on August 27). Crandall and Morsi are both authors whose voices I love and whose books always leave me longing for the next one.

Historical romance is my favorite subgenre, and I am eagerly anticipating the summer offerings, especially Manda Collins’s Wicked Widows series which debuts on July 30 with Why Dukes Say I Do and Anna Campbell’s new Sons of Sin novella (Days of Rakes and Roses) on July 2 and novel (A Rake's Midnight Kiss) on August 27. I am also enthusiastically looking forward to the Billionaire Brothers series by Lily Everett (aka Louisa Edwards). This contemporary series, consisting of three enovellas (The Firefly Café, The Summer Cottage, and Island Road) releasing on July 2, 9, and 16, is set on Sanctuary Island and serves as a prequel to the novel Sanctuary Island (July 30), described as a place “where broken hearts come to heal—and where every lost soul will find a home.”  

Every book on this list promises to be a great summer read.

 JUNE

3 Stewart, Mariah Swept Away (novella) 4 Andrews, Mary Kay Ladies Night Burrowes, Grace Ethan Carlisle, Kate A Cookbook Conspiracy* Dark, Emmie Just for Today Gray, Juliana How to Tame Your Duke Jacobs, Holly A Walk Down the Aisle Kantra, Virginia Carolina Girl* Kaye, Robin You're The One Marlowe, Mia Romanced by a Rake Pickering, Kathleen The Father of Her Son Talley, Liz His Uptown Girl Thomas, Jodi Can't Stop Believing White, Karen The Time Between 18 Collins, Manda The Perks of Being a Beauty Delinsky, Barbara Sweet Salt Air (HB) Goodnight, Linda Baby in His Arms Jeffries, Sabrina What the Duke Desires Wilde, Lori One True Love 25 Beaton, M. C. Hiss and Hers (pb of 2012 release) Brogan, Tracy Hold on My Heart* Carr, Robyn The Newcomer Grant, Celia A Woman Entangled Griffin. Laura Exposed Haymore, Jennifer The Duchess Hunt Long, Julie Anne It Happened One Midnight Mallery, Susan Two of a Kind Monroe, Mary Alice The Summer Girls Pappano, Marilyn A Hero to Come Home To Rice, Luanne Little Night Richards, Emilie            Somewhere Between Luck and Trust Stone, Jillian The Miss Education of Dr. Exeter Terry, Candis Anything But Sweet Thayne, RaeAnne Willowleaf Lane Wilde, Lori All Out of Love

JULY 1 DeStefano, Anna A Sweetbrook Family  2 Krotow, Geri Navy Orders O'Brien, Kathleen Betting on the Cowboy Brooke, Christina London's Last True Scoundrel Burrowes, Grace Beckman Campbell, Anna Days of Rakes and Roses Crandall, Susan Whistling Past the Graveyard Everett, Lily The Firefly Café (enovella) Essex, Elizabeth Scandal in the Night Frank, Dorothea Benton The Last Original Wife Mulry, Megan If the Shoe Fits Rice, Luanne The Lemon Orchard Robinson, Maggie In the Arms of the Heiress 9 Everett, Lily The Summer Cottage (enovella) Naigle, Nancy Wedding Cakes and Big Mistakes* St. Claire, Roxanne Don't You Wish (YA) 15 Foley, Gaelen My Notorious Gentleman 16 Everett, Lily Island Road (enovella) 23 DeStefano, Anna Three Days on Mimosa Lane 30 Andersen, Susan Some Like It Hot Ashe, Katharine How to Marry a Highlander Collins, Manda Why Dukes Say I Do Cornick, Nicola The Lady and the Laird* Everett, Lily Sanctuary Island Jordan, Sophie How to Lose a Bride in One Night* Linden, Caroline Love and Other Scandals* Mallery, Susan Three Little Words Novak, Brenda Home to Whiskey Creek Ranney, Karen The Devil and Clan Sinclair* Robinson. Maggie Lady Anne's Lover* AUGUST 1 Kelly, Carla The Double Cross 6 Andrews, Beth What Happens Between Friends Altman, Kathy Staying at Joe's* Beverley, Jo Seduction in Silk Burrowes, Grace Once Upon a Tartan Drake, Laura Her Road Home George, Lily Healing the Soldier's Heart Johnson, Janice Kay From This Day On Lee, Jade What the Bride Wore Quinn, Tara Taylor Second Time's the Charm Ross, JoAnn Castaway Cove Scott, Regina The Courting Campaign* Warner, Kaki Behind His Blue Eyes Willig, Lauren The Passion of the Purple Plumeria 13 London, Julia Homecoming Ranch Macomber, Debbie Rose Harbor in Bloom 20 Allen, Louise Rumors: Scandal Comes to Wimpole Hall Ashley, Jennifer The Untamed MacKenzie Greene, Jennifer The Bonus Mom (HSE) Stuart, Anne Never Kiss a Rake 27 Ashe, Katharine I Married the Duke The Arrangement Mary Balogh Campbell, Anna A Rake's Midnight Kiss Carr, Robyn The Hero Castle, Jayne Deception Cove Chapman, Janet For the Love of Magic Kramer, Kieran Say Yes to the Duke Macnamara, Ashlyn A Most Devilish Rogue Morsi, Pamela Love Overdue Neville, Miranda The Ruin of a Rogue Putney, Mary Jo Sometimes a Rogue Will you be reading this summer? At the beach?  At the mountains? At home with the airconditioner on low? What books are you most eagerly anticipaing?

Six Lists: The Best Romance Novels of 2012

It’s that time of year when individuals and groups are looking back over the year and deciding who belongs on their best of 2012 lists. Most of you know by now that I love lists, making my own and reading those generated by other lists makers. If it’s a list of books, I always check to see how many I’ve read. With the best of romance lists, I have a particular interest in seeing how my list matches, or fails to match, the prestigious lists—the ones authors and their agents and publishers brag about having made.

The Best of the Year Season for romance readers always begins in September with Booklist, a century-old American Library Association publication that reviews books for school and public libraries. Editor and reviewer Donna Seaman notes the “smart women protagonists” in her list of this year’s top ten romances:

• Bedding Lord Ned, Sally MacKenzie                                
• Blue Moon Bay, Lisa Wingate
• Can't Buy Me Love, Molly O'Keefe
• Forever and a Day, Deborah Marville
• The Great Escape, Susan Elizabeth Phillip
• A Lady Never Lies, Juliana Gray
• The Lord of Illusion, Kathryne Kennedy
• The Night Is Mine, M. L. Buchman
• Rainshadow Road, Lisa Kleypas
• The Ugly Duchess, Eloisa James

My score on this one? I read five (the titles in bold), and I scored 50 percent.

Publishers Weekly, the most venerable of these sources with its 140-years of continuous publication, announced its best in early November. I’m not sure why, but PW limits its choices to five. I found this list especially interesting this year because it includes the reissue of a romance originally published in 1994. It’s one of my all-time favorite books, and I concur with the description of the novel as “tender and endearing.” Still, I question whether a book published in 1994 really belongs on a list of the best of 2012.

     

• The Bridegroom Wore Plaid, Grace Burrowes 
• A Week to Be Wicked, Tessa Dare
• Love on the Run, Zuri Day
• Mrs. Drew Plays Her Hand, Carla Kelly
• Dog Days, Elsa Watson (Tor)

I did better with this one. I read four of the five, giving me a score of 80 percent. I think I should get extra points for the number of times I’ve reread Mrs. Drew Plays Her Hand.

Amazon made its list public in mid-November. Given the amount of money I’ve paid the company for filling up my Kindle in 2012, you would think I’d have a 100 percent score here. Nope. I read five of the site’s top ten romances and scored another 50 percent.

• Bared to You, Sylvia Day
• The Witness, Nora Roberts
• Darker After Midnight, Lara Adrian
• Gunmetal Magic, Ilona Andrews
• The Recruit, Monica McCartey
• Redwood Bend, Robyn Carr
• Lothaire, Kresley Cole 
• When the Duke Found Love, Isabella Bradford 
• Forever and a Day, Jill Shalvis 
• How to Be a Proper Lady, Katharine Ashe

Library Journal, a trade publication for librarians—founded by the inveventor of the Dewey Decimal system, no less—also published its list of ten in mid-November. LJ's romance reviewer Kristin Ramsdell always has interesting, insightful things to say about romance. This is my favorite list because I’ve read nine of the ten books. A score of 90 percent gives me an A on this one. Yay!

• Lady Louisa’s Christmas Knight
• Firelight, Kristen Callihan
• Scandal Wears Satin, Loretta Chase
• A Week to Be Wicked, Tessa Dare
• A Gentleman Undone, Cecilia Grant
• ’Twas the Night After Christmas, Sabrina Jeffries
• The Great Escape, Susan Elizabeth Phillips
• The Witness, Nora Roberts
• Tempting the Bride, Sherry Thomas
• Bride of the High Country, Kaki Warner

Kirkus, a book review magazine that has been offering readers “unbiased, critical recommendations they can trust” since 1933, doesn’t have a romance list exactly. Instead, it includes six books that it considers the “Best Fiction about Love and Sex.”  With only four of the six on my have-read list, my score is a dismal 66.6 percent. Moreover, I never even heard of the two I haven’t read. I fear my reputation as a remarkable reader is in jeopardy.

• Seven Variations on a Love Story, Joan Wickersham
• Office Girl, Joe Meno
• The Great Escape, Susan Elizabeth Phillips
• Somebody to Love, Kristan Higgins
• Rainshadow Road, Lisa Kleypas
• I’ve Got Your Number, Sophie Kinsella

Most recently, GoodReads, a privately run "social cataloging" website started in December 2006, announced its member-voted GoodReads Choice Awards for 2012. I blush to admit that I have read only one of the ten on this list, and even if I use the full list of twenty nominated books, I’ve read only three. So, my score here is 10 percent or 15 percent. Dreadful in either case. I guess my reading tastes must be very different from those of GoodReads romance readers, at least those who voted.

• Fifty Shades Freed, E. L. James
• Bared to You, Sylvia Day
• Lover Reborn, J. R. Ward
• The Witness, Nora Roberts
• Once Burned, Jeanine Frost
• On Dublin Street, Samantha Young
• Edenbrooke, Julianne Donaldson
• Gabriel’s Rapture, Sylvain Reynard
• Motorcycle Man, Kristen Ashley
• Lothaire, Kresley Cole

Overall, there are forty-three different books on these lists; I’ve read twenty-two. The oldest book on the list is Carla Kelly’s Mrs. Drew Plays Her Hand, first published nearly twenty years ago; the most recent is The Bridegroom Wore Plaid by Grace Burrowes, a December 4, 2012 release. Burrowes is the only author with two novels on the lists. Only six titles appear on more than one list. There are more than twice as many historical romances as contemporary romances on the lists, but the two that appear most often (The Great Escape and The Witness on three lists) are contemporaries. Bared to You, Lothaire, Rainshadow Road, and A Week to Be Wicked each appears on two lists. Six of my top ten are on at least one of these lists, but that’s getting into next Friday’s post. Until then . . .

Do you check out these best of lists? How many of these books have you read?

Janga’s Ten Best Romance Novels of 2012 So Far (Plus Two Bonus Reads)

It’s almost July, and we’re half way into 2012.  For romance readers, this means that several thousand romance novels have been published this year. Amazon has announced their list of the ten best so far. I’ve only read four on their list. Evidently the Amazon editors love some subgenres that I don’t read at all.

You might think realizing this would make me a more adventurous reader. You’d be wrong. I have over a hundred new books on my Kindle and several dozen more on my print TBR shelf, most of them 2012 pubs and most of them romances. Among the romances, almost without exception, the books are historicals, contemporaries, or books with strong romantic elements. A few are romantic suspense, and I know of a few paranormals I’ll be adding later this year. But mostly I’m loyal to the subgenres I like best. Clearly I’m having problems finding time to read the books I know I want to read; I lack motivation to add those I might not like to the list.

All of this chatter is prefatory to presenting my choices for the ten best romance novels of 2012 for January through June (in alphabetical order by author since it would take more time than I have at the moment to rank order the books). Surprisingly, the Amazon editors and I actually agree on two. :) The comments are excerpted, sometimes slightly modified, from my reviews. I didn’t set out to choose only books I had reviewed, but it worked out that way. Clicking on the titles will take you to the original reviews.

To my top ten, I added two other books that I loved, although neither is labeled “romance novel” in my reading journal. One is a memoir and my favorite book of the year across categories. I’ve read it three times and know I’ll return to it many more times. The other is a YA novel, a rare book that I read solely on the basis of a GoodReads recommendation and loved.

The List

A Weekto Be Wicked, Tessa Dare

I’ve been a Tessa Dare fan since I read and gave top scores to her entries in Avon’s Fan Lit competition. I’ve read and loved the eight novels and two novellas that preceded A Week to Be Wicked, but I think this is her best book yet. Minerva and Colin are both characters who fall within the conventions of romance fiction (the bluestocking and the rake) and yet manage to be fresh and original. They are funny and flawed and completely engaging—an unexpected pairing that, against all odds, feels perfect.

At Your Pleasure, Meredith Duran

Meredith Duran is quite simply one of the best writers I’ve read. Her characterization is superb, her plots compelling, and her prose lucid and powerful. She also offers her readers the gift of difference in a genre more accustomed to sameness. Duran sets At Your Pleasure in England in 1715, the year after the coronation of George I. The possibility of a Jacobite rebellion was real; some scholars believe it was a more serious threat that the rebellion of 1745. Most readers of historical romance fiction are familiar with the rudiments of the latter rebellion, having encountered references to Bonnie Prince Charlie, the Battle of Culloden, and Cumberland’s brutal suppression in novels from Georgette Heyer’s The Masqueraders to those by Veryan, Gabaldon, Canham, and countless others. The political climate of England in 1715 when Catholics, including Catholic aristocrats, were denied the right to worship, to vote, to be educated is less familiar. Duran captures the realities of the period without slamming her readers in the face with a history book. And she combines historical accuracy with emotionally credible actions and reactions. . . . If you like your romances intense, dark, emotional, and romantic in the truest sense, you will not want to miss At Your Pleasure.

A Gentleman Undone, Cecilia Grant

Like many other readers, I was won over by [A Lady Awakened, Grant’s first book]. I loved Grant’s fresh take on an established trope and her way with language. I fell in love with these same qualities in A Gentleman Undone. It is a darker book than the first one, but voice, style, and a pushing-the-boundaries approach to the conventions of romance fiction are the same. So is the author’s gift for crafting words and sentences that left me giddy with delight over their precision and perfection.

Rainshadow Road, Lisa Kleypas

Lucy and Sam deserve each other. Yes, they have great chemistry, and the novel contains some wonderful love scenes that are a mix of heat, heart, and humor. But they are more than sex partners. They talk to one another, revealing themselves through sharing their histories and their thoughts. They laugh together. They like each other. I don’t want to include spoilers, so I’ll just say there are two incidents in the novel where Kleypas had a choice about what her characters would do, one fairly early in the story and one near the end. In both cases, one choice would have destroyed the book for me. It would have become just another in a long list of books that leave me regretting the book that could have been if only . . . Both times, these characters make the choice that maintains the integrity of the people I have come to believe they are.

Can’t Buy Me Love, Molly O’Keefe

Near the end of the novel, Victoria voices a truth all the characters must learn: “We’re more than our mistakes. . . . More than our pasts. We can be more than the things we let define us.” Once Tara and Luc accept this truth, they can accept their flawed selves and open their hearts to receive the love that is waiting for them. These sentences are thematic not only for Can’t Buy Me Love but also for Molly O’Keefe’s work generally. It is a theme that was present, if less directly articulated, in The Temptation of Savannah O’Neill, the first O’Keefe book I read, a theme I found throughout the backlist I then glommed, and one that resonates in her newest work of category fiction, Unexpected Family.
  

 Can’t Buy Me Love is a single-title debut worth celebrating. Molly O’Keefe tells a great story that evokes laughter and tears, and she does something more. She reminds her readers of a truth we all need to learn.

No Longer a Gentleman, Mary Jo Putney

Talk about tortured heroes. I found Grey’s transformation during his imprisonment and afterwards persuasive. I thought Cassie, with her history, her courage, and her understanding of the man Grey had become, was the perfect heroine for him. I loved their story!

A Night Like This, Julia Quinn

The second book in the Smythe-Smith series is one of the feel-good romances of the year. It picks up where the last one left off, at the annual family musicale first made famous in Quinn’s beloved Bridgerton series. Once again Quinn does what she does best: she takes a standard Regency plot—governess with a big secret that puts her at risk falls for gallant aristocratic hero—and adds the touches that makes the story uniquely and delightfully hers. Anne is an immensely sympathetic and likeable heroine. Because of a mistake in judgment made when she was very young, she has been barred from all she has known and loved and forced to depend upon her own resources to survive. Life has made her cautious but not bitter, and it has not destroyed her sense of humor.

But Daniel is the star of the book. Horrified by the results of the absurd duel, he accepts responsibility for maiming his friend, although his shooting him was an accident. His affection for his family is unmistakable, and he is the very pattern of a man totally blindsided and inebriated by love.


The Witness, Nora Roberts

It’s a long way from a horse rancher and groomer (Irish Thoroughbred, Nora Roberts’s first published book) to a computer programmer and a cop—more than three decades and two hundred books. But Nora Roberts, the best known romance writer on the planet, has always known “it all goes to character” and work informs character. This book bears Witness to that.

Beguiling the Beauty, Sherry Thomas

Complex, compelling characters, an unusual and emotionally powerful plot, and prose with the range and beauty of music—what more can a reader ask for? Maybe more of the same. I am confident that’s what Thomas will provide in the next two books in her first series. My recommendation is to put Beguiling the Beauty on your must-buy list, and while you’re at it, you should add Ravishing the Heiress (Millie and Fitz’s story, July 3) and Tempting the Bride (Helena and her hero’s story, October 2).

Overseas, Beatriz Williams

 

Just a week or so before I read Overseas, I commented to a friend that the idealistic Brooke, whom poet W. B. Yeats reputedly described as “the handsomest young man in England,” would make a wonderful model for a romance hero. I felt as if Julian were a gift in response. I loved him. I loved the book. If you are a romantic who believes that love can be eternal, I predict you’ll love it too. My only complaint is that I really wanted to read the full poem that gives the book its title. A few lines just weren’t enough for this romantic. I don’t think I’ve ever before recommended a time travel romance (not even Gabaldon, whose books I couldn’t read—sacrilege, I know), but I definitely recommend this one.

A Bonus Duo

Paris in Love, Eloisa James

           

Underlying all of the last things, of course, is her consciousness that life itself is ephemeral. “Along with the rest of humankind,” she writes, “I inherited faulty genes, all of which are programmed to die.” But in the meantime, there is life to be lived with love and grace, memories to make for the next generation, and time to be spent generously and wasted extravagantly. Looking back on the year her family spent in Paris, James draws a conclusion about what she, Alessandro, Luca, and Anna learned: “We learned to waste our moments—together.”

I consider the time I spent reading Paris in Love thrice time well spent. James gave me Paris, she sent me back to the poetry of Auden, and she reminded me that lazy moments now and then do not disturb the universe.

Good for You, Tamarra Webber

I loved Good for You with its out-of-control, hot celebrity hero and VBS-teaching, Habitat-for-Humanity volunteering heroine. I haven’t reviewed this one, but for those of you who read YA, I highly recommend it.

How many of Amazon's list have you read? How many of my list have you read? What's on your best of 2012 list so far?

 

 

Note: I tried posting covers with the descriptions of the books, but they kept messing up. My knowledge of html code is minimal, and I couldn't fix the problem. The covers do appear on the links.