Kristen Ashley
Own the Wind
Forever / April 2, 2013 (digital), June 25, 2013 (print)  / $6.00 print, $3.79 digital

Tabitha Allen grew up in the thick of Chaos-the Chaos Motorcycle Club, that is. Her father is Chaos' leader, and the club has always had her back. But one rider was different from the start. When Tabby was running wild, Shy Cage was there. When tragedy tore her life apart, he helped her piece it back together. And now, Tabby's thinking about much more than friendship . . .

Tabby is everything Shy's ever wanted, but everything he thinks he can't have. She's beautiful, smart, and as his friend's daughter, untouchable. Shy never expected more than friendship, so when Tabby indicates she wants more-much more-he feels like the luckiest man alive. But even lucky men can crash and burn . . .

Now where did we leave off with Tabby and Shy in Kristen Ashley's Motorcycle Man? Oh yeah, they’re at a Chaos Motorcycle Club picnic and Elvira announced to Tack’s old lady, “Trouble’s a-brewin’.” Why? Because Tyra and Elvira both see Tack’s daughter Tabby watching Shy flirting with an attractive biker babe looking “like her entire world just came to an end.” Not good.

[Would could possibly go wrong?]

Maisey Yates
Heir to a Desert Legacy
Harlequin / March 19, 2013 / $4.99 print, $3.82 digital

Thrust reluctantly to the throne, Sheikh Sayid is shocked to discover a child who is his country's true heir, and he'll do anything to protect him, even if it means taking on the child's aunt!

Chloe James might behave like a tigress protecting her cub, but this trained soldier can see her weak spot. Taking Chloe as his bride would appease the people of his kingdom, and provide the perfect outlet for the blistering chemistry between them….

Just looking at what elements Heir to a Desert Legacy includes, it's hard to see how the disparate elements might all fit together. Take a look at what author Maisey Yates tweeted about the book: “Physicist heroine. Surrogacy! Lost heirs and a sheikh who likes to be tied up. Why...it's #superbadsheikh!”

Sayid al Kadar and American Chloe James are two very different people with a lot in common. Until Kadar discovered that his dead older brother left behind an heir, he had been about to step into a role—being his country's ruler—for which he was not trained. Out of compassion and love, Portland Ph.D. student Chloe James had agreed to be a surrogate mother for her infertile half-sister, married to the ruler of Attar, but her life’s focus was to become a physicist. She certainly did not bargain on her sister dying when she gave birth to her biological nephew, suddenly becoming a full-time mother to a newborn. Sayid also misses his former life, as a soldier in the desert, thinking to himself as he searches for his nephew in Portland that “now that his duties kept him close to the palace, it felt nearly as cold as this cold, damp place.”

[Can two fish out of water become two peas in a pod?...]

Recently, there was fast and furious discussion on Twitter DM on the topic of Mary Balogh’s heroines. They have the reputation for being a) too good to be true b) Mary Sues and c) tepid rather than torrid. Janet Webb kicked these canards around with historical writer Miranda Neville, another fan of Balogh’s traditional Regencies. Is the rap on these heroines true, false or somewhere in between?

The books discussed: Tempting Harriet, Snow Angel and The Incurable Matchmaker. If you’d like to refresh your memory on the plots, the following summaries are from Mary Balogh’s website.

Tempting Harriet: Once, when she was a mere lady's companion, Harriet Pope had spurned the attempted seduction of the Duke of Tenby. Now, six years later, she is the wealthy, titled widow of an older man, and she is the one who sets out to seduce* the duke. Yet when she succeeds, it is to the discovery that an affair is not what she wants after all. An affair, though, seems to be all Tenby can offer.

*It may be that this synopsis overstates how much Harriet is the seducer. True, she jumps to the conclusion that he is asking her to become his mistress and agrees, but she doesn’t make the first move.

[Where's the fun in that...]

Ruthie Knox
Along Came Trouble
Loveswept / March 11, 2013 / $2.99 digital

An accomplished lawyer and driven single mother, Ellen Callahan isn’t looking for any help. She’s doing just fine on her own. So Ellen’s more than a little peeved when her brother, an international pop star, hires a security guard to protect her from a prying press that will stop at nothing to dig up dirt on him. But when the tanned and toned Caleb Clark shows up at her door, Ellen might just have to plead the fifth.

Back home after a deployment in Iraq and looking for work as a civilian, Caleb signs on as Ellen’s bodyguard. After combat in the hot desert sun, this job should be a breeze. But guarding the willful beauty is harder than he imagined—and Caleb can’t resist the temptation to mix business with pleasure. With their desires growing more undeniable by the day, Ellen and Caleb give in to an evening of steamy passion. But will they ever be able to share more than just a one-night stand?  

In Ruthie Knox's Along Came Trouble, if Ellen Callahan were asked which part of her mattered most in the wider scheme of things, undoubtedly she would say, “I am Henry’s mother.” Callahan is still recovering from an unfortunate marriage. Her professor husband did nothing to bolster her self-esteem and the final straw was his infidelity with a co-ed. It’s hard to cut the ties with an alcoholic ex when his mother babysits her grandson and the professor is a man-about-town in the small university burg of Camelot.

[So romance really IS the last thing on her mind, then...]

Julia Justiss
The Rake to Ruin Her
Harlequin Historical / March 1, 2013/ $6.25 print, $5.99 digital

Known as “Magnificent Max,” diplomat Max Ransleigh was famed for his lethal charm until a political betrayal left him exiled from government and his reputation in tatters. He seems a very unlikely savior for a well-bred young lady.

Except that Miss Caroline Denby doesn't want to be saved…she wants to be ruined! To Caroline, getting married is tantamount to a death sentence, and meeting the rakish Max at a house party seems the answer to her prayers…. Surely this rogue won't hesitate to put his bad reputation to good use?

What does the title of Julia Justiss's latest book tell us? That a scandal-ridden rake will ruin a virtuous young woman? Perhaps. But longtime readers of Julia Justiss will know that the truth will be somewhat more complicated than that.

At a country house party, we meet Max Ransleigh, once “Magnificent Max,” a disgraced young man who has nowhere to hide because of his involvement in an assassination attempt on Wellington. He was actually used by a duplicitous French widow who played on his sense of honor, but unfortunately, rumors have a way of sticking. He’s avoiding London and his politically-connected earl father and he’s not welcome at the family home in the country either. Max is, however, always welcome at the country house of his cousin Alastair—even if he has to skulk in the shadows lest his very presence ruin some young lady’s reputation. The timing for a visit is off because Alastair’s mother is hostessing a house party to give her youngest daughter a touch of bronze before her London season.

[Something tells me it'll all work out...]

May old friends be forgot? We don't think so! We're celebrating our favorite reads with five days of the Best of 2012. We asked our bloggers for their favorite recommendations of 2012, with one stipulation, they had to be new to them and not necessarily new to 2012. We know we got a few recommendations to add to our to be read piles and it's a great way to feed those readers you hopefully got for Christmas!

Don't miss out on the shopping list for these great recommendations once you finish reading, and check out the recommendations from Day One, Day Three, Day Four, and Day Five, too! Click here to view the Day Two shopping list.

Rachel Hyland:

Seraphina by Rachel Hartman
If there is any facet of the Fantasy genre I have never understood the fascination with, it is dragons. (Also, King Arthur.) But Rachel Hartman’s debut YA novel gives us such very different dragons, all dwelling in such a wonderfully-imagined, fully-realized world, that even my level of perplexed disinterest is easily overcome by her sheer cleverness. Told with an enchanting combination of outcast angst and amiable wit by our first person, titular narrator, we are immersed in political machinations, societal tension, complex familial relationships and yes, romance, and from the very first page the story just does not let up, or let go. Highly, highly recommended.

[King Arthur, YA, what could be next!]

Donna Grant
Midnight's Warrior
St. Martin's Press / November 27, 2012 / $7.99 print & digital

For ten long years, Tara has been a woman on the run, hiding from the magic-wielding Warriors and Druids of modern-day Scotland. Now, as a tour guide at a remote Highland castle, she hopes to finally escape her past—until one impossibly gorgeous man enters her life…and exposes her wildest secrets.

For centuries, Ramsey MacDonald has concealed his strength and skill as part Warrior, part Druid, for fear of unleashing the full force of his power. But when he takes Tara into his arms—and seals their fate with a kiss—Ramsey will have to fight for her love…though it may mean losing control of the magic inside him.

A lovely woman is manning the phones in a gorgeous Scottish castle-hotel—but she's not just in Scotland for the scenery. Tara is running from a secret past, and is afraid for her life. I hadn’t read the previous books in Donna Grant's Dark Warrior series, so I wasn’t sure whether Declan, the man Tara is thinking about, was good or bad—just that he was influential in Tara’s past. He’s certainly chasing her, but why? It seems Declan wants to bend her to his will. Tara had escaped from Declan ten years earlier, but she doesn’t want to leave her refuge in a Scottish castle and start running again.

In the past, Tara was quite intrigued by the handsome handyman Ramsey, even though the timing wasn’t right; “The problem was there was never a good time for her to get involved with anyone.” Ramsey is a brawny dark-haired Celt with eyes the color of gray ash, so rugged that he doesn’t even wear a coat outside, even though it’s bitter cold in the Highlands.

[A hunky, hardy Highlander? I dig it...]

NEW!: Comment below for a chance to win 1 of 2 copies of Mary Balogh’s The Proposal!*

Mary Balogh
The Proposal
Delacorte / May 1, 2012 / $16.97 print, $12.99 digital

Gwendoline, Lady Muir, has seen her share of tragedy, especially since a freak accident took her husband much too soon. Content in a quiet life with friends and family, the young widow has no desire to marry again. But when Hugo, Lord Trentham, scoops her up in his arms after a fall, she feels a sensation that both shocks and emboldens her. 

Hugo never intends to kiss Lady Muir, and frankly, he judges her to be a spoiled, frivolous—if beautiful—aristocrat. He is a gentleman in name only: a soldier whose bravery earned him a title; a merchant’s son who inherited his wealth. He is happiest when working the land, but duty and title now demand that he finds a wife. He doesn’t wish to court Lady Muir, nor have any role in the society games her kind thrives upon. Yet Hugo has never craved a woman more; Gwen’s guileless manner, infectious laugh, and lovely face have ruined him for any other woman. He wants her, but will she have him?...

It is both a blessing and a curse to be a heroine whose story readers have yearned for lo these thirteen years. The Proposal, the first book in Mary Balogh’s new series, the Survivors’ Club, is the story of Gwendoline, Lady Muir, whom we first met in One Night For Love, which was published in 1999.

Gwen is a loving sister, daughter, cousin, aunt, friend, and all of Balogh’s readers have come to appreciate her.

[And she’s finally getting her own hero? Sweet!...]

Happy Mother’s Day! This is an idiosyncratic look at three fictional mothers, with the connecting strand being money. “My children are my riches," sometimes translated as “These are my jewels,” is a maxim attributed to Cornelia, the mother of the Gracchi, Valerius Maximus (4.4). When a friend swanned about in the most drop-dead worthy jewels of the time in Rome, Cornelia is said to have waited until her children returned from school, and then said, haec sunt ornamenta mea.

The second Sunday in May can be an occasion for celebration, regrets, gauzy childhood memories, or chilling reminisces of a mother from hell. But most of us are not black and white, but rather shades of grey with human strengths and failings and, with a few sad exceptions, most fictional mothers have their children’s best interests at heart. Our first mother wants lusty love and a place of belonging for her son, with money not at the forefront of her concerns. Our second mother is so deeply in debt that her extravagant choices have curtailed the choices available to her twin boys, and the third mother is literally willing to pimp out her daughter to get her family out of debt.

[Does anyone else suddenly want to call and thank their own mothers?...]

While Christmas stories abound, it’s no easy task to find a romance book that has a Thanksgiving celebration. In fact, only one book popped into my head: Nora Roberts’s Key of Valor, the third in her Key trilogy. This stuck in my head because like the fourth couple at the feast, Rowena and her warrior lover Pitte, I did not grow up celebrating American Thanksgiving on the last Thursday in November. I grew up in Toronto: when I crossed the border at Buffalo in 1986, little did I know that 25 years later, American Thanksgiving would be my favorite holiday.

In Canada, Thanksgiving is always celebrated on the second Monday in October. Many families mark the occasion by closing down their summer cottages and preparing them for winter. Some essentials are the same—it’s a time for families to come together and gorge themselves on turkey and football. There are no gifts to buy, trees to trim or carols to sing. For all those similarities, however, a Canadian Thanksgiving is really more of a Harvest Festival—a time to kick through the leaves and enjoy the last crisp days of autumn before the time changes and the days shorten. There are no pilgrims; no weight of 300+ plus years of tradition underpinning the day.

[And then there is a Nora Roberts Thanksgiving...]

Joanna Chambers
The Lady’s Secret
Carina, $5.99, Nov. 7, 2011

London, 1810

Former actress Georgiana Knight always believed she and her brother were illegitimate—until they learn their parents were married, making them heirs to a great estate. To prove their claim, Georgy needs to find evidence of their union by infiltrating a ton house party as valet to Lord Nathaniel Harland. Though masquerading as a boy is a challenge, it pales in comparison to sharing such intimate quarters with the handsome, beguiling nobleman.

Nathan is also unsettled by Georgy’s presence. First intrigued by his unusual valet, he’s even more captivated when he discovers Georgy’s charade. The desire the marriage-shy earl feels for his enigmatic employee has him hoping for much more than a master-servant relationship...

But will Nathan still want Georgy when he learns who she truly is? Or will their future be destroyed by someone who would do anything to prevent Georgy from uncovering the truth?

[Will it?...]

Kieran Kramer
If You Give a Girl a Viscount
St. Martin’s, $7.99, Nov. 1, 2011

If life were a fairy tale, Daisy Montgomery’s stepmother and two stepsisters would surely be cast in the wicked roles. For years, they’ve made life miserable for Daisy. But when she discovers she has a godmother, she’s determined to ask her for help. Little did Daisy expect her godmother to play matchmaker with her very own grandson—who happens to be a viscount!

A freewheeling playboy, Charles Thorpe, Viscount Lumley, is bored with his wealth-seeking female admirers. Not only that, he’s been cut off from the family coffers. One day, on a bet, he rids himself of what little money he has left in his pockets and vows to solve problems using his wits alone. But when the Impossible Bachelor is confronted with Daisy’s plan to save her castle, the payoff is more than he could have bargained for. Sometimes, if you give a girl a viscount, you just might find love….

[So give the girl a viscount already!...]

Janga’s post on Debbie Macomber: Sweet, Cozy, Comfortable—and Hot(-Selling!) made me think about how we regard books that are both sweet and hot-selling. Here’s the first paragraph of Janga’s blog, where she hands-down demonstrated that Macomber’s success is impressive indeed, particularly in a romance world where big sales often seem to be equated with an accelerating heat level.

“Make it hot” may be the watch-cry of 21st-century romance fiction, but one of the genre’s top-selling authors has become a #1 New York Times bestseller, a RITA winner, and a Nora Roberts Lifetime Achievement Award recipient by writing over 150 kisses-only novels known as “sweet romances."

What does “sweet” mean to most people? I checked in with a few friends who informed me that sweet was a euphemism for little to no sex (and if there is sex, it’s fade-to-black time). When there’s no sex, then cozy and comfortable goes with the territory. I’m standing to say that ain’t necessarily so. Sweet doesn’t equal cozy and comfortable, or at the very least, it isn’t a guarantee.

[So what does it mean?...]

Tessa Dare
A Night to Surrender
HarperCollins Publishers, August 30, 2011, $7.99

Spindle Cove is the destination of choice for certain types of well-bred young ladies: the painfully shy, young wives disenchanted with matrimony, and young girls too enchanted with the wrong men. It is a haven for those who live there.

Victor Bramwell, the new Earl of Rycliff, knows he doesn’t belong here. So far as he can tell, there’s nothing in this place but spinsters…and sheep. But he has no choice, he has orders to gather a militia. It’s a simple mission, made complicated by the spirited, exquisite Susanna Finch—a woman who is determined to save her personal utopia from the invasion of Bram’s makeshift army.

Susanna has no use for aggravating men; Bram has sworn off interfering women. The scene is set for an epic battle…but who can be named the winner when both have so much to lose?

[I dunno, sounds win/win to me!...]

If HeroesandHeartbreakers were a traditional magazine, I’d pose the question, “What kind of Heyer father are you?”

Or what kind of Heyer father is your dad or your husband or brother—you get the drift. I thought of some likely categories:

• Father Knows Best
• Mr. Mom
• Helicopter Dad
• Hands-off Dad
• Father of Trophy Child(ren)

In answering the Heyer question, I considered the paters in three well-known Heyers, Powder and Patch (Sir Maurice Jettan), The Masqueraders (Robert, Viscount Barham), and Cotillion (Lord Legerwood).

I thought initially that the most modern father would be Freddy’s dad, Lord Legerwood, but by the time I finished, I decided that many of today’s fathers are a cross between Viscount Barham and Sir Maurice Jettan.

[How so?...]

It might be heating up where you live, but it’s Christmas every day when it comes to a great story. I don’t reserve these wonderful traditional Christmas Regency stories for those few special weeks in December; in fact, whenever life is too much with me, whenever I need a reminder of the strength and tenacity of love and family, these are the stories to which I turn—even if it’s 80 degrees outside.

Here are my top five holiday stories…which I offer up on the understanding that the list might be different next month.

Mary Balogh, “The Wassail Bowl,” A Regency Christmas Feast, 1996

In this story, Mary Balogh tells of lost love found when a betrayed beauty and a jealous lord learn just how hard it is to resist each other. Balogh often alludes to the story of Joseph and Mary in her Christmas novellas. And in “The Wassail Bowl,” a father is desperately anxious to see his son, currently living with his estranged wife…and “her” daughter accompanies her mother and brother to the earl’s estate at Christmas. Things are not as they seem, although the book does not get off to a good start when the countess flings the contents of the Wassail Bowl in her husband’s face (Balogh kindly provides the recipe so we know exactly how sticky and icky it feels to have trickles of sugary port wine wassail dripping down your neck). Christmas and children and a lost love regained make for a perfect tale.

[Sweet!...]

One of the most serious compacts between the reader and the author is the Happily Ever After (HEA). When I pick up a romance, I know that no matter how tortuous the pathway to true love, that there will be an HEA. But there are a few books, usually seared into your consciousness, that test that theory to the limit; A Precious Jewel by Mary Balogh is one.

Ask about A Precious Jewel and you’ll get a lot of feedback. It was first published in 1993 and republished in 2009. Here’s the description from Mary Balogh’s website:

Sir Gerald Stapleton takes Priscilla Wentworth out of a brothel to be his mistress when he discovers that she has been abused. He does not understand quite what she has come to mean to him, though, until she leaves him one day to marry someone else—and then simply disappears beyond trace.

[And that's not their darkest moment...]

How often do we read a romance when it isn't fairly clear, fairly early on, that love and marriage is a possibility, even if a remote one? With a well-written mistress book in an aristocratic setting, a conventional happy ending should seem out of the question. According to Free Dictionary, the definition of a mistress is “A woman who has a continuing sexual relationship with a usually married man who is not her husband and from whom she generally receives material support." By that definition, actress Jessica O'Neill from Joan Wolf's His Lordship's Mistress certainly fits the bill: The Earl of Linton supports her financially and although he is single, he may as well have been married because of the disparity between their stations in life. Not sounding so much like a romance, is it?

[The turning point...]