So, two things happened when I read the prologue to Julie Ann Walker’s Hell on Wheels. First, I guessed the secret that was tormenting Nate—our stoic hero. Walker telegraphed that punch pretty strongly. Second, I learned that telegraphed punches take nothing away from general enjoyment of a book.  Those 10 pages were enough to get me hooked. The rest of the pages were enough to get me hooked on Walker's entire series. 

Hell on Wheels starts with Nate Weller making the death notification to the parents and baby sister of his best friend. He’s always had a thing for Ali, baby sister, but you know how that goes, right? Your best friend threatens to rip your arms off and beat you to death with them if you touch his sister…..sounds like a pretty important warning to heed, right? Nate keeps his distance. But, when it turns out she is being stalked, she runs to him for help, and finds out about the secret life he and her brother had been living. Ali is interested, definitely, but Nate has some pretty dark demons working on him. It’s a romance, so you know the ending will be satisfying. 

[Satisfaction guaranteed...]

We asked H&H blogger Robin Bradford to share secrets from her day job as a librarian, where she’s the one deciding what books are bought for her library.

When asked to do a column on how I decide what books to add to the library collection, the task seemed both easy (I do this 40 hours a week) and impossible. There are collection development policies, and patron requests, choice of formats and item availability. There are differing philosophies: classic collection vs. contemporary and fresh; fewer individual titles but lots of copies of popular books, vs. a deep collection with fewer copies of the same book; hardcover titles only vs. trade paper vs. mass market (regular or premium tall edition). Did I forget to mention audiobooks? (Digital or CD or MP3 or Playaway?) And if you’re at all interested in libraries, you know the ebook battle that’s been going on the past few years has been epic, with no signs of settling any time soon. When faced with trying to describe all of that in a blog post, I nearly cried. So, here is a basic overview of things I consider when deciding what to add to our collection.

[Something tells me it may boil down to...]

I like bad boys. I know lots of people say that, and it can mean many different things. The term “bad boy” is almost used so much as to make the boys in question more ordinary than bad. I’ve talked about my ultimate bad boy prototype, Christopher Whitman (or Donatti, if you prefer) in this post over at Criminal Element. For me, the bad boy can’t get any better, or worse, than that.

But, there are few others who come close to meeting the requirement.

Bad Boys in books are usually damaged in some way. There is a big difference, though, between the naughty prankster who just needs a hug from a good woman, and a man who, often, does the wrong thing. On purpose. Repeatedly.

Jimmy Nash – The Bad Boy of Suzanne Brockmann’s Troubleshooters, Inc series. Jimmy Nash is an assassin. No, wait, he performed “deletions” for The Agency. He’s hot, an expert flirt, so good at his job that he takes unreasonable chances just to make it more challenging. These chances often result in him getting dings, some of which require stitches and/or hospital stays. He never knew his father and his juvenile record culminates with him refusing to rat out a mob boss. Brockman has him describe himself, in the beginning of the book as “first cousin to the devil.” As usual, when you’re trying to make a suitable hero, Nash isn’t as bad as he makes himself out to be. That doesn’t mean he’s good, though. He has some heroic tendencies, some soft spots for widows and children, but that doesn’t stop him from sleeping with a woman he knows his partner is interested in.

[Nice guys finish last...]

I’m not Team Edward or Team Jacob, but I have a really hard time deciding between Teams Jem, Will, Jace, Alec, Simon, and now Kyle. Or heck, why not Team Isabelle or Clary?

I was never really a fan of YA lit. Or Teen lit, as we call it in our library, or whatever designation you choose to give it. I’m not a huge fan of teens in real life, so why would I want to spend any time reading about the 13-19 set? Little by little, though, suggestions started coming in for books that were REALLY GOOD despite the character age group. When someone suggested City of Bones, it was impossible to resist. It had everything I normally love in a book with the great worldbuilding, supernatural elements, secret societies, non-humans, super humans and, of course, action and, of course, love. Was I really going to let a little thing like teenagerism stand in the way? Of course not. But even though I expected to like it given what I’d heard, I had no idea I would find it consuming. These were books, at least in the case of City of Ashes and City of Glass, that I literally could not put down. I finished both of them over the course of a weekend.

(Editor’s Note: And as the film adaptation of The Mortal Instruments currently in the works proves, Robin’s far from the only adult hooked on this series. As with The Hunger Games movie, casting alone for The Mortal Instruments has already generated a lot of buzz (the two leads, it was recently announced will be Lily Collins of The Blind Side and Jamie Campbell Bower of the Twilight saga and television’s Camelot).

[What gives?...]

“In fact, so much of the description is repeated, I think she has a macro for a lot of stuff. Like hit F3 every time you say 'Nathaniel' and 'violet eyes floor length auburn hair dancer only wearing shorts' just appears.“

Ahhhh, Laurell K. Hamilton. I remember when I first picked up Guilty Pleasures, which was my senior year of college. I read the first three books back to back;  I hadn’t seen anything like it, and I loved everything about it. I loved the urban Midwestern landscape, the kick-ass heroine, the sexy and mysterious (yet strangely settled in the Midwest?) vampire, it was all good.  For me, it was all good until around October 2001, which was when Narcissus in Chains came out.

[What went wrong?...]

Have you read every book by Nora Roberts? (A quick Google query of “how many books has Nora Roberts written?” returns with more than 200...and obviously counting!). If you have read them all, my hat is off to you, because that is seriously impressive.

I, for one, have just barely scraped the tip of the iceberg when it comes to Nora Roberts books. And while I've enjoyed nearly all the Roberts books that I’ve read, there are some that draw me back for repeated enjoyment.

Midnight Bayou

Who doesn’t love a good ghost story? Quite honestly, the first time I read this book, parts of it scared the heck out of me. Not that the book is particularly scary, but sometimes my imagination doesn’t need much to be led down frightening paths: Murdered wives, cursed and/or haunted houses, ghosts with an agenda? Yeah, that can freak me out. I could just imagine being in that house, alone, with rooms I was too afraid to enter. Doors opening and closing, water running, and the “cold chill” factor only increase the likelihood that I wouldn’t have made it past the first night. For me, the ghost story was the star of this show, even though I did enjoy the romance between Declan and Lena. There were times when she got on my very last nerve with her stubbornness.  I never really felt like she had a reason for behaving the way she did. But the rest of the book was so compelling, however, it overcame my usual heroine problem. As a person who has only been a visitor to New Orleans, I can’t say if Roberts truly captured the feel of someone living in the place. It felt like what I saw there as a visitor, though. One of my favorites.

[Don't get too comfy in the Big Easy—Roberts takes you all over...]

Like Winter, spoilers are coming...!

'So if you hate, Arya, hate those who would truly do us harm. Septa Mordane is a good woman, and Sansa…Sansa is your sister. You may be as different as the sun and the moon, but the same blood flows through both your hearts. You need her, as she needs you…and I need both of you, gods help me.'

[We're all friendlies, so let's just...be friendly!...]

Beware: This post has as many spoilers as Cersei has men thinking she's gorgeous...

Cersei Lannister from George R.R. Martin's A Game Of Thrones is a strong, beautiful, powerful woman who will do anything to—well, she'll do anything.

This Sunday, HBO premieres its Game Of Thrones miniseries, and Cersei's actions and motivations inspire much of the plot. Her diabolicalness is legend (for readers of the books, at least), and it's not until the fourth book in the series, A Feast For Crows, that we actually get events told from her point of view.

His lord father had come first, escorting the queen. She was as beautiful as men said. A jeweled tiara gleamed amidst her long golden hair, its emeralds a perfect match for her eyes. His father helped her up the steps to the dais and led her to her seat, but the queen never so much as looked at him. Even at fourteen, Jon could see through her smile.

[Clearly you don't want to get on her bad side...]

Tropes. Archetypes. Recurring plots. Whatever you call them, they are embedded in our culture. 

Genre fiction, as a whole, is criticized for using and re-using these patterns, but they are found in literary fiction as well. They are definitely found in TV and movies, and even in the dominant and minor chords that run through music. They’re in the blurbs on the backs of books and sometimes even reflected in the title and the covers. All of that is designed to let readers know that their favorite, heavily worn, storyline is back.

[Now it's the Same. Old. Song. But with a different meaning since you've been gone...]

Why would romance readers be interested in George R.R. Martin's fantasy saga A Song of Ice and Fire? Because George R.R. Martin's series is full of relationships, and there's nothing romance readers like better than that, is there? The loyalty or treachery associated with each of myriad relationships propels every action occuring within the pages—and will soon do the same on the small screen (for an in-depth read of the books themselves, visit our sister site, Tor.com, for their Game of Thrones series). HBO debuts its miniseries version of George R.R. Martin’s Game of Thrones on April 17th, and so we point the H&H spotlight on Daenerys Stormborn Targaryen, the woman who considers herself the rightful ruler of Westeros.

(The following post contains spoilers for Book 1, A Game of Thrones.)

'You are the one who forgets himself,' Dany said to [Viserys]. 'Didn’t you learn anything that day in the grass? Leave me now, before I summon khas to drag you out. And pray that Khal Drogo does not hear of this, or he will cut open your belly and feed you your own entrails.'

Daenerys Stormborn Targaryen is, in many ways, a traditional heroine whose story has been told many different times. A young woman, from a difficult family situation, who finds herself married to an older stranger. Many a historical romance has started out in similar fashion.

[I sense a “but” looming...]

No, Game Of Thrones is not a romance. Not in the traditional sense, certainly. But hear me out: George R.R. Martin's series is full of relationships, and the loyalty or treachery associated with each of them propels each and every action occuring within the pages—and will soon do the same on the small screen (for an in-depth read of the books themselves, visit our sister site, Tor.com, for their Game of Thrones series). HBO debuts its miniseries version of George R.R. Martin’s Game of Thrones on April 17th (and they showed a 15-minute preview last night!), and this seemed like the perfect time to take a look at the women behind the Thrones, so to speak, starting with the driving matriarch of the series, Catelyn Stark.

[Winter is coming...]

Fate as the unseen, driving force bringing two people together is not an idea that is unique to the romance genre. In fact, you’re just as, if not more, likely to find it in fantasy writing. Whenever there is a “quest” and/or a “prophecy” there is likely to be some sort of fated pairing. It’s an archetype that can be endlessly molded, formed . . . massaged even, to fit the circumstances of the story. Yes, it can also be a huge concrete wall as well. After all, if a character is meant to be only with one certain person, and it was preordained, and if it doesn’t happen the world will end—well, you don’t have much wiggle room in that, do you?

[I'll dare the fickle finger of Fate . . . ]

She Ain’t Heavy, She’s My Wife

 homage to my hips

by Lucille Clifton

these hips are big hips
they need space to
move around in.
they don't fit into little
petty places. these hips
are free hips.
they don't like to be held back.
these hips have never been enslaved,
they go where they want to go
they do what they want to do.
these hips are mighty hips.
these hips are magic hips.
i have known them
to put a spell on a man and
spin him like a top!

The controversy about the TV show Mike and Molly gave me cause to go back and reread two of my favorite books, which happen to both feature heroines who are anything but svelte.  The Los Angeles Times ran an article in March 2009 about “Fashion’s Invisible Woman" that describes the average U.S. woman as a size 14. In fashion, this means you are invisible, but the invisibility doesn’t just end there; on TV, in music videos, and also in fiction, you are there, but not there. You can be the friend of a beautiful person, the sibling (always jealous) of a beautiful person, but not the main attraction. As usual, before the tide started to turn on TV, it had already shifted in books.

[Romances rock 'cause they celebrate the large woman! . . .]

The idea of vampire hunter falling in love with vampire is as old as the genre itself. What could provide more conflict than the predator falling in love with the prey? The conflict becomes a little less conflicted when the prey turns out to have a heart of gold who just needs to be loved/understood/hugged.  

[All I ever wanted was Mom's approval . . . !]

People who know books often talk about what is popular, what used to be popular, what should or shouldn’t be popular . . . and why. You can find the discussion in newspapers, on blogs, in magazines, and, every once in a while, books make it to the flickering TV screen as well. One of the most fascinating things that only readers seem to discuss is the process of “The Breakup.”

It mostly happens with fiction, but not always; I’ve certainly heard of readers giving up completely on self-help books, Civil War biographies, political criticisms, and everything else.

['Twas fun while it lasted . . .]