On July 20, 2013, at the Awards Ceremony of the 33rd annual conference of the Romance Writers of America, Mary Jo Putney will receive the Nora Roberts Lifetime Achievement Award in recognition of a career that spans more than twenty-five years and includes some of the genre’s classic romances.

A perennial bestselling author and ten-time RITA finalist, Putney has won the prestigious award twice: Best Regency Romance in 1990 for The Rake and the Reformer and Best Long Historical Romance in 1995 for Dancing on the Wind (Book 3 in her Fallen Angels series). Five of her books have been named among the year’s top five romances by The Library Journal, and three were listed in the Top Ten Romances of the year by Booklist. Four of her books (The Rake, Thunder and Roses, Shattered Rainbows, and One Perfect Rose) have appeared on All about Romance’s reader-voted Top 100 Romances polls in 1998, 2000, 2004, and 2007.

Romance readers owe a debt to word processing because it wasn’t until she mastered word processing that Putney, a graphic designer at the time, wrote her first book. Three months later, she had a contract with Signet not only for that first novel, but also for two other traditional Regencies. The Diabolical Baron was published in November 1987, followed by The Would-Be Widow in July 1988 (expanded as The Bargain in 1999) and The Lady of Fortune in September of the same year. Collectors are now paying as much as $174 for a copy of the latter.

[My guess? Worth it...]

Lauren Willig
The Ashford Affair
St. Martin’s Press / April 9, 2013 / $24.99 print, $11.99 digital

As a lawyer in a large Manhattan firm, just shy of making partner, Clementine Evans has finally achieved almost everything she’s been working towards—but now she’s not sure it’s enough. Her long hours have led to a broken engagement and, suddenly single at thirty-four, she feels her messy life crumbling around her. But when the family gathers for her grandmother Addie’s ninety-ninth birthday, a relative lets slip hints about a long-buried family secret, leading Clemmie on a journey into the past that could change everything. . . .

Growing up at Ashford Park in the early twentieth century, Addie has never quite belonged. When her parents passed away, she was taken into the grand English house by her aristocratic aunt and uncle, and raised side-by-side with her beautiful and outgoing cousin, Bea. Though they are as different as night and day, Addie and Bea are closer than sisters, through relationships and challenges, and a war that changes the face of Europe irrevocably. But what happens when something finally comes along that can’t be shared? When the love of sisterhood is tested by a bond that’s even stronger?

From the inner circles of British society to the skyscrapers of Manhattan and the red-dirt hills of Kenya, the never-told secrets of a woman and a family unfurl.

Lauren Willig forsakes the Napoleonic era spies of her popular Pink Carnation series to give readers a sweeping saga of family relationships and secrets that span three generations. Promoted as a meeting of Downton Abbey and Out of Africa, The Ashford Affair reminded me most of family sagas that have held me enthralled, from Elswyth Thayne’s Williamsburg series (1943-1957) to Colleen McCullough’s The Thorn Birds (1977) to Isabelle Allende’s The House of the Spirits (1982).

[Get drawn in...]

Try changing the point of view from first person to third person in the opening of Herman Melville’s Moby Dick, and you will understand the power a first-person narrative can have. I doubt that the opening sentence would be among the most famous in American literature had Melville written “His name is Ishmael” rather than “Call me Ishmael.” Or imagine Jane Eyre without the pervasive presence of Jane’s consciousness. The reader’s understanding not only of who Jane is but also of Rochester and other characters would be quite different if the story had been told in a different point of view, as Jean Rhys shows in Wide Sargasso Sea, her deconstruction of Charlotte Brontë’s classic text.

First-person narratives are common in literary fiction; in fact, some critics charge that first person point of view is overused in contemporary literary fiction. In popular fiction, first person was often adopted by writers of Gothic romances, and, more recently, it has been used by dozens of chick lit authors. It seems to work particularly well in establishing the conversational, confidential tone for which these authors are aiming. It has the same effect when Kristan Higgins adopts it for her contemporary romances. The intimacy it creates between character and reader has also made it an effective choice for authors of romance/women fiction hybrid novels by authors such as Lisa Kleypas, Marsha Moyer, Barbara Samuel, and Deborah Smith. But generally genre fiction privileges third person point of view, and there has been an unwritten rule that historical romance authors particularly should avoid first person narratives.

The traditional Regency is not the subgenre in which one would expect to find rebellious authors, but several trad Regency authors have ignored conventional wisdom and used first person point of view. Diana Brown’s The Emerald Necklace (1981) showcases the dangers and the advantages of first-person tales.

[What's life without a little risk?...]

We all know how important clothing is in real life. It functions as a primary means of nonverbal communication to inform a watching world about who we are. Clothing can reveal—or sometimes conceal—gender, class, occupation, age, economic status, and group affiliation among other things. How often have you heard people define themselves or others in terms of their clothing? An actress describes herself as a “jeans and tee shirt kind of girl,” and the public understands a great deal about how she sees herself, or at least how she wants the public to believe she sees herself. One man mocks another for being a “Brooks Brothers type,” and we draw conclusions about both the mocker and the object of his mockery.

Clothing figures in our art too. Think about the part clothing plays in our understanding of the peasants in Bruegel’s “The Wedding Dance” or the repressed colors of Degas’s “The Bellelli Family." Consider the visual images that are evoked by naming characters from literature. If I mention Guinevere, the Wife of Bath, Fitzwilliam Darcy, or Jay Gatsby, I dare say particular details of clothing form part of the mental picture you have of these characters. Critics and fans alike almost inevitably refer to costume design as part of the appeal of period movies, and from seventeenth-century poet Robert Herrick writing about the sweetly flowing “liquefaction” of Julia’s clothes to Mary Chapin Carpenter in 1999 penning a tribute to an old, silver-buttoned shirt that has served as a blanket for lovers and a birthing bed for a cat, poets and songwriters have been inspired by clothing.

[How does it factor into romance novels?...]

Laura Moore
Once Tempted 
Ballantine Books / March 26, 2013 / $7.99 print & digital 

Oldest son Ward Knowles feels the sprawling California ranch in his blood. And now that the family business has expanded to include a popular resort, he’s working harder than ever. Silver Creek is his legacy and his life, which is fine for the ruggedly sexy ladies’ man and committed bachelor. Love and trust don’t come easily for Ward since he lost his heart to a gold digger—until he meets a shy, unpretentious beauty whose sweet grace is about to turn his jaded heart into a hungry one.
 
Tess Casari has found sanctuary at Silver Creek, working as an assistant to Ward’s mother, Adele. Grateful for her busy new life running the ranch’s spa and resort, Tess can escape the heartbreak, humiliation, and secret shame of her failed marriage. The last thing she needs is temptation—especially from a man who reminds her so much of the husband who shattered her faith in love. But passion and destiny are about to change the rules for two people who have stopped believing in the healing power of love.

If I were selecting a playlist for my literacy autobiography, I would be sure to include Trisha Yearwood’s “Cowboys Are My Weakness.” After all, cowboys were my first heroes. I spent countless Saturday afternoons watch Roy and Gene and the lesser known but most dashing Lash LaRue on the big screen, and I started reading my dad’s Zane Gray and Louis L’Amour books only a year after I started reading my mother’s romance novels. I sighed over the Marlboro Man ads in the days of ignorance. Ward Knowles, the hero of Laura Moore’s Once Tempted, the first book in her new Silver Creek series, may seem far removed from the classic cowboys of my youth, but he shares some essential qualities with them.

[Let's hear 'em!...]

Alison Kent
Second Chance Café
Montlake / March 5, 2013 /  $12.95 print, $4.99 digital

Growing up, Kaylie Flynn was shuffled from foster home to foster home before being welcomed into Winton and May Wise’s family. It was May who taught Kaylie the comfort of home, and the healing power of baking the perfect brownie. Years later, May leaves Kaylie the money she needs to open her own café in the charming Victorian they once shared. Now back in Hope Springs, Kaylie’s determined to finally make all her dreams a reality—and unearth answers to lingering questions about her past.

Soon, however, Kaylie’s carefully laid plans take an unexpected turn. The house needs far more work than she realized, and Tennessee Keller, the carpenter Kaylie hires, is proving to be a very handsome and very unneeded distraction from her quest to uncover the truth about her parents. When a crisis threatens to destroy everything she’s worked so hard to build, Kaylie must decide where her heart lies: with the ghosts of her past or the love and promise of her future.

I have an abiding affection for second-chance stories, and so I found the title of Alison Kent’s inaugural book for her Hope Springs series irresistible. What I found within the book’s pages was more than even my second-chance-loving heart anticipated.

[Our hearts are all aflutter, too!...]

Christie Ridgway
Bungalow Nights
Harlequin HQN / February 26, 2013 / $7.99 print, $6.15 digital

Combat medic Vance Smith made a promise to a fallen officer: to treat the man's young daughter to an idyllic vacation at Beach House No. 9. One month, some sun and surf, a “helmet list” of activities to check off and Vance will move on. But the “little girl” he's expecting turns out to be a full-grown woman. With silky hair, big brown eyes and smelling sweetly of the cupcakes she makes for her mobile bakery, Layla Parker is irresistible. And Vance shouldn't lay a finger on her. Honor—and one heck of a scarred heart—says so.

To Layla, Vance is a hero who was injured trying to save her father's life. She intends to spend their month of lazy days and warm nights taking very good care of the gorgeous soldier—inside and out….

Bungalow Nights is the second novel (plus a prequel novella) in Christie Ridgway’s Beach House No. 9 series, all set in a California beach house that may have the magical power to bring true lovers together. But before they can achieve their HEA, the lead characters and two of the secondary characters must reject the self-concepts they adopted at an early age.

[Easier said than done, I'm sure...]

Susan Mallery
Three Sisters
Harlequin Mira / February 26, 2013 / $10.00 print, $8.79 digital

After Andi Gordon is jilted at the altar, she makes the most impetuous decision of her life—buying one of the famed Three Sisters Queen Anne houses on Blackberry Island. Now the proud-ish owner of the ugly duckling of the trio, she plans to open her own pediatric office on the first floor, just as soon as her hunky contractor completes the work. Andi's new future may be coming together, but the truth is she's just as badly in need of a major renovation as her house.

When Deanna Phillips confronts her husband about a suspected affair, she opens up a Pandora's box of unhappiness. And he claims that she is the problem. The terrible thing is, he's right. In her quest to be the perfect woman, she's lost herself, and she's in danger of losing her entire family if things don't change.

Next door, artist Boston King thought she and her college sweetheart would be married forever. Their passion for one another has always seemed indestructible. But after tragedy tears them apart, she's not so sure. Now it's time for them to move forward, with or without one another.

Thrown together by fate and geography, and bound by the strongest of friendships, these three women will discover what they're really made of: laughter, tears, love and all.

I always enjoy Susan Mallery’s women's fiction novels. This second book in her Blackberry Island series uses a metaphor to connect the journeys of three women.

[What metaphor?...]

Sophia Nash
The Duke Diaries
Avon / February 26, 2013 / $7.99 print, $6.64 digital

Six Regency heroes—One royal hangover

After a royal bachelor party of the century, Lady Verity Fitzroy wakes up to find her brother's archenemy, Rory Lennox, the Duke of Abshire, in her bed. While Rory has always fascinated her, nothing can convince her to marry this rake even though her reputation is in peril. Indeed, there are far graver worries that plague her. If she is unmasked as the author of the infamous Duke Diaries, no one can save her . . . not even the man of her dreams.

Though he has known Verity since she was still in the schoolroom, Rory never imagined her to be such a spitfire! Which only makes the challenge of winning her hand more intriguing. Never mind that he has no interest in a wife. But when this secret war hero discovers the root of Verity's horrendous troubles, he realizes he must face down his greatest fears not only to save her . . . but to win her hand and her heart.

Sophia Nash’s Royal Entourage series has been described as “one part The Hangover, one part Entourage.” The Duke Diaries is the third book in the series, and the relationship between Rory, Duke of Abshire, and Lady Verity Fitzgerald, one of the five sisters of James, the Duke of Candover, is the kind that I enjoy most. The two begin with a history, but the relationship develops gradually. The reader sees Rory move by stages to a love for Verity so huge that it would have been unfathomable to him earlier.

[In this case, it really is about the journey...]

When offered the chance to propose a “core curriculum” for historical romance, I eagerly accepted, knowing full well the problems I would have narrowing the list to a reasonable length. After long consideration, I have a list (in chronological order)—not of my favorites (although some are books I cherish) but rather twelve books (thanks to a gracious editor who allowed me to include two beyond the desired maximum) that seem to me to be “foundational;” that is, they either illustrate a convention or trope fundamental to historical romance (representative book) or mark a significant change in the subgenre (unique contribution), and they all provide rich material for discussion on key issues. 

1. Pride and Prejudice (1813), Jane Austen

Technically, of course, Jane Austen did not write historical romance, but many of the elements familiar to readers of historical romance in the 21st century can be traced to this book. Pamela Regis asserted in A Natural History of the Romance Novel (2003) that “the courtship makes the romance,” and Pride and Prejudice is a courtship book, a courtship that involves a heroine with intelligence and humor who is no beauty but has “fine eyes"; an arrogant, wealthy hero humbled by love; relatives, embarrassing and interfering; a wicked deceiver; a pompous suitor; sisters, dear and not so dear; a best friend; a bungled proposal; appropriate groveling; and a happily ever after ending that includes true love and an enviable income. I’ve only scratched the surface of what romance fiction owes to this book.

[What else is on the syllabus?...]

Vicars appear regularly in romance fiction as secondary characters. Who can forget Jane Austen’s clergymen—the obsequious Mr. Collins in Pride and Prejudice, the vain and greedy Philip Elton in Emma, the admirable Edmund Bertram in Mansfield Park? Less memorable is the worthy vicar in Georgette Heyer’s Arabella whose character is best revealed in the values he has imparted to his daughter. Heyer set the precedent here as in so many ways; vicars in popular romance are most commonly fathers or, somewhat less often, deceased husbands of the heroines. A quick count of just my personal catalog yielded more than seventy historical romances that feature a vicar’s daughter or a vicar’s widow.

In many of these books, the vicar is not a character in the true sense; his presence is restricted to references and memories. In others, he plays a definite role. Authors may choose to make the vicar a man with a true vocation beloved by his family and parish (Anthony Drew whose character is revealed through the memories of his wife and daughters in Mrs. Drew Plays Her Hand by Carla Kelly), flawed in a way that marks him as clearly unsuited for his office (the heroine’s father in Father Christmas by Barbara Metzger), or steeped in villainy (the morally corrupt Dorian Thorne in Dame Durden’s Daughter by Joan Smith or the Reverend Jack Gardeyne in Skylark by Jo Beverley).

Rare indeed is the vicar as hero. In fact, after much searching, I found only nine historical romances featuring vicars as heroes that I can recommend: seven I recommend with a warning that they range from the sweet to the spicy, from the simple to the complex, and from the light-hearted to the angst-ridden. The last two I place in a separate category: one because it is already widely considered a classic of historical romance, and the other (one of the most popular titles of 2012) because I predict it will someday be so labeled.

[Bring on the vicar heroes...]

In the spring of 2008, I received a rare you-must-read-this email from my friend PJ. The book she was urging me to read was The Duke of Shadows by Meredith Duran. Since I trust PJ, I read The Duke of Shadows a week or so later, and on the strength of that debut novel I added Duran to my list of autobuy authors. That same year, I added two other authors of historical romance to my autobuy list on the strength of just one book. Like The Duke of Shadows, The Spymaster’s Lady by Joanna Bourne and Private Arrangements by Sherry Thomas were big buzz books of 2008. I expected to see all three authors on award lists, and some of my expectations were met.

The Spymaster’s Ladyand Private Arrangements were both RITA finalists for Best Historical Romance, placing Bourne and Thomas in the company of such heavy hitters as Lisa Kleypas and Stephanie Laurens. Private Arrangements was also a finalist for Best First Book, and My Lord and Spymaster, the follow-up to The Spymaster’s Lady, won for Best Regency Historical. The Spymaster’s Lady was the big winner in All About Romance’s annual reader poll, winning Best Historical Romance Set in the U.K., Best Romance, Best Romance Couple, and Best Romance Heroine with an honorable mention for Best Romance Hero. Private Arrangements earned Thomas the nod for Best Debut author and an honorable mention for Best Historical Romance Set in the U.K. Both books were shortlisted for the romance novel most highly recommended to readers and librarians by the References and Users Services Association, and both showed up on RT Book Review’s 2008 list of 1001 best romances of all time. The Duke of Shadows was on none of these lists.

[That's a pretty impressive résumé...]

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!

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 Two, Day Three, and Day Five! Click here to view the Day Four shopping list.

Heather Waters:

Eleanor and Park by Rainbow Rowell
Rowell’s young adult debut impressed me so much, I immediately purchased her adult novel, Attachments (another enjoyable read). Teenage outsiders Eleanor and Park, each dealing with wholly relatable problems, quickly win you over individually and only become more compelling together.Their story is funny, sweet, sad, and heart-melting—sometimes all at once.

[The best combination possible!]

If I could fill a Christmas basket for each of you with my favorite Christmas historical romances of 2012, I’d include a book for each day of Christmas week: four new releases and three reissues.

Lady Louisa’s Christmas Knight, Grace Burrowes
I love Grace Burrowes’s large, loving Windham clan—eight siblings and parents who are as fascinating as their children. Lady Louisa’s book is the sixth in the series. It features not only a Windham heroine who is smart and different and determined to avoid matrimony (for what seems to her very good reason), but an even more unusual her—a pig-farming knight who is clearly her social inferior. Secrets abound, and the delighted reader is soon cheering for these two practical lovers to attain an HEA that is everything their poetry-loving hearts deserve. Library Journal named this book one of the best romances of 2012.

[They hero and heroine certainly sound refreshingly different...]

Julia Quinn, Eloisa James, Connie Brockway
The Lady Most Willing...
Avon / $7.99 print & digital / December 26, 2012

At the behest of three of the most talented historical romance authors writing today, you are cordially invited to a ball. No, a party. No...a kidnapping.

Taran Ferguson, laird of his clan, is determined that his ancient (if not so honorable) birthright be secured before he dies. When both his nephews refuse to wed, the old reprobate takes matters into his own hands: he raids a ball and makes off with four likely brides . . .

Miss Marilla Chisholm—the bonniest lass in Scotland, and an heiress to boot.

Miss Fiona Chisholm—her older sister, another fine choice (but for that tiny stain on her reputation).

Lady Cecily Tarleton—true, she's an English beauty, but very, very rich.

Miss Catriona Burns—without name or fortune, clearly someone made a mistake.

Oh, yes. And one very irate duke.

Because somewhere there must be one lady most willing to love a Scottish lord.

First, a warning to readers for whom such things as angst and credibility and logic are primary criteria for a good historical read: avoid this book. The Lady Most Willing, the second “novel in three parts” on which Julia Quinn, Eloisa James, and Connie Brockway have collaborated, is part legend, part farce, and wholly delightful. It reminded me of Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, a classic MGM musical from 1954, directed by Stanley Donen.

[Let the fun begin...]

If I were headed for a desert island and were allowed to take only one Christmas romance, I’d take one by Carla Kelly. The problem would be choosing just one. Of course, I could take Carla Kelly’s Christmas Collection, published last year by Cedar Fort. It includes four of her novellas previously published in the Signet Regency Christmas anthologies: “The Christmas Ornament” (A Regency Christmas, 1998), probably the most light-hearted of Kelly’s stories, with an Oxford scholar as hero and a pair of matchmaking fathers; “Make a Joyful Noise” (A Regency Christmas Carol, 1997), with a hero who finds his heroine when his mother gives him the task of recruiting new voices for a choral competition; “An Object of Charity” (A Regency Christmas Present, 1999), with a ship’s captain who’s coming home to an estranged family and the niece and nephew of his first mate, killed in action, for whom the captain feels responsible; and “The Three Kings” (A Regency Christmas II, 1990), in which the hero and heroine travel through war-torn Spain.

[This doesn't even scratch the surface!...]

One of the first new Christmas books I read this year was Mischief and Mistletoe, an anthology that includes stories by eight romance authors who blog together as the Word Wenches. They are (in the order in which they are listed on the cover) Mary Jo Putney, Jo Beverley, Joanna Bourne, Nicola Cornick, Anne Gracie, Patricia Rice, Cara Elliott, and Susan King. It’s an interesting collection on several counts, not least because this is a gifted group of writers. Among them, the Wenches have written 231 novels and 74 novellas, made every bestseller list in the genre, and amassed a string of awards that include several RITAs and one RWA Hall of Fame inductee (Jo Beverley). 

The stories are short, around ten thousand words, and although five of them are reunion stories, they cover a variety of classic romance tropes from road stories to mistaken identity to protagonist as thief (with a good reason, of course). The stories are also remarkably true to the authors’ individual styles and voices. These are writers whose books I read regularly, and I didn’t really need the attached names to recognize the returned hero transformed by his war experience as Mary Jo Putney’s, or the French spies as Joanna Bourne’s and so on with most of the stories.

[A story for every writer, and reader...]

Decades before it became trendy for romance fiction authors to adopt different pseudonyms to reinvent themselves or to publish in a new subgenre, Eleanor Alice Burford Hibbert was publishing under eight names. Romance readers may not recognize her legal name, but chances are most of them have read at least a novel or two by Jean Plaidy, Victoria Holt, or Philippa Carr.

Hibbert was born in 1906 in London. Little is known about her early life; two of her publishers even list conflicting dates for her year of birth. But we do know that she completed nine long novels before her first book was published in 1941. She seems to have had ambitions to write literary fiction until an editor advised her to write something “saleable” instead and suggested romance fiction. She read fifty romances as research and then wrote Daughter of Anna for which she received the munificent sum of £30. The book was a success, and Herbert Jenkins contracted her to write first one novel, later two, each year. She went on to publish twenty-nine more novels as Eleanor Burford over the next two decades; all were romances featuring youthful protagonists and bearing titles like Passionate Witness (1941) and The House at Cupid’s Cross (1949).

[Anyone else feel like a major slacker right about now?...]

Skim romance or women’s fiction novels in any bookstore—online or brick and mortar, new or used—and you will probably notice that small-town settings abound, most of them as part of a series. A search for “romance small town” on NoveList yields more than 2400 titles. More than fifty series set in twenty states are represented on my own bookshelves (not counting mysteries, which have some of the best small towns). Texas is an easy winner among my books, with nine series set there, including Susan Elizabeth Phillips’s Wynette, Jodi Thomas’s Harmony, and Meg Benjamin’s Konigsburg, three of my favorite series. California is next with five, but among the five is Robyn Carr’s Virgin River series, which at twenty books may hold the record for the longest running small-town series. Some people credit it with starting the current trend.

I’ll be honest and admit that while I love the subgenre of small-town romance, I can get confused about which towns are located where and sometimes even which characters belong in which town. Thus, I have a particular fondness for small towns with a difference, settings that are fixed in my mind because they stand out from all the others because of their geography or their history. The only thing my top five small towns have in common is that they combine difference with verisimilitude (the quality of being real or true).

Henry Adams, Kansas, the Blessings series (four novels) by Beverly Jenkins

Henry Adams is a fictional town modeled after the historical all-Black towns founded by freed slaves in the 1870s. The town has fallen on hard times and ends up for sale on eBay. It is bought by Bernadine Brown, a divorcee worth $275 million after her lawyer finished with Bernadine’s cheating husband. Mrs. Brown reads about a town in Illinois that pairs retired people with foster children and she buys the town to restore it and use it for her own project that begins with five foster children. Granted, the plot is improbable, but the town with its history, its current problems caused by the bad economy and political corruption, its mix of petty, self-absorbed people and good-hearted but flawed people, and the troubled children who are offered a second chance rings true and unforgettable.

[Speaking of unforgettable...]