Cynthia Justlin
Edge of Light
Carina Press / $5.99 digital / May 14, 2012

Taken prisoner by a ruthless group of anarchists deep in the Cambodian jungle, anthropologist Jocelyn Hewitt is isolated in a dark prison cell. Without chance of rescue. Or hope. Until the man in the next cell reaches out to let her know she’s not as alone as she thinks.

CIA agent Oliver Shaw has been held prisoner for over two years. Forced to witness the brutal torture and slow murder of his entire team, his spirit is not just broken, it’s crushed. He no longer believes in hope. Until he hears Jocelyn through the wall, and suddenly feels like a glimpse of light is trying to reach in... 

After reading the summary of Cynthia Justlin’s Edge of Light, I was curious as to how the author would manage to describe horrible torture and still make the romance appealing and believable. I also wondered how she would depict the villains—would they be cartoonish?

[Like Bluto? Or the coyote?...]

Edited by Steve Berman
Boys of Summer
Bold Strokes Books / May 15, 2012 / $13.95 

Walt Whitman referred to a “Mad, naked, Summer Night!” In the pages of Boys of Summer, acclaimed editor Steve Berman’s latest anthology, talented authors and fresh voices reveal the allure and excitement of the season for gay teens. June always promises romance. July entices with its raw heat, and August offers a languid fire that will burn out before autumn’s approach. These are stories of young love and adventure, when the sky’s ceiling is a bright blue marvel, when another boy’s laughter at the beach can distract from dull summer jobs.

Boys of Summer, edited by Steve Berman, is an anthology of short stories about young gay men in love during summer. The blurb sounds like a vacation read for high schoolers, but the stories and the romances are complex enough that I think adult readers might also appreciate the anthology.

What I loved most was that, even though many of the stories featured attractive young men you might expect to see in an Abercrombie ad, many of the stories also featured geeks (conventionally attractive and otherwise) of one kind or another; everything from an inveterate reader of fantasy novels in “Breakwater in the Summer Dark” by L. Lark to band geeks in “Brass” by Marguerite Croft and Christopher Reynaga. The hero of “Bark if You Like Boys” by Sam Cameron is even a reader of romance novels!

[A man after my own heart...]

Alexia Reed
Hunting the Shadows
Carina / May 7, 2012 / $5.99

Amy has spent her life in isolation. Locked away in the Centre, a secret government facility where children with extraordinary abilities are raised as highly skilled fighters, she longs for a normal life. A life where being around people doesn’t overload her sensitive telepathic mind. A life where she can’t see through the eyes of a murderer as he hunts down his next victim...

J.C. Nikolaiev was a top researcher, but when his conscience got the better of him, he tried to destroy his work and free his subjects-and was imprisoned as a traitor. To save himself and prevent more people from dying, J.C. must catch the serial killer stalking the halls of the facility. But his only leads come from a woman whose thoughts have invaded his mind...

Finally out of the psych ward, Amy joins forces with J.C. to find the killer before he closes in on them. Can their growing attraction withstand the truths they uncover?

Alexia Reed’s Hunting the Shadows features humans bred and trained in a secret government facility called The Centre. Each of the facility’s inhabitants has supernormal powers, in the vein of Marjorie Liu’s Dirk & Steele series, though the setup also reminded me a bit of the television show that made Jessica Alba famous, Dark Angel, and of another, older show called The Pretender. Adding to the worldbuilding, there is a mystery/suspense plot involving a serial killer. There are clear signs within the novel that this world could be the setting for a series, with an ongoing plot relating to the program and its many secrets.

[First step: Get hooked on Book 1...]

Kayla Perrin
Always in My Heart
Harlequin / May 2012 / $6.25 print, $5.09 digital

The oldest of three adopted daughters, Callie Hart has always loved being the protector of the family. But now she is all grown up—with a young son of her own to protect. Callie can’t wait to show him off when she reunites with her two sisters in Ohio. But that also means coming face-to-face with the lover she left behind. Nigel Williams is even more irresistibly attractive than ever. But what will he do when he learns about the secret she kept hidden from him for ten years?

Nigel has never forgiven Callie for fleeing Ohio—and the passion they shared. And when she shows up on his doorstep asking for forgiveness, the Cleveland cop is furious at her deception. But how can he deny the feelings Callie reawakens in him? Blindsided once again by the heat of desire, Nigel vows to fight for his future with the woman he has always loved.

Always in My Heart by Kayla Perrin begins a new trilogy focusing on three sisters, whose adoptive parent, their aunt, has recently and unexpectedly died.  Though the sisters were estranged, the funeral brings them back together, issues and all. Both family dynamics and current social issues play a part in the story. Perrin takes a realistic look at both, and though the romance is central to the plot, it’s clear that it doesn’t happen in a vacuum.

[Live love life...]

Susan Johnson’s Outlaw was published in 1993. It’s a historical romance set in 1704 in Scotland, just over the border from England. The hero, John Carre, is laird of his clan, but to me as a romance reader, his most significant characteristic is that he is a Rake. Yes, with a capital R.

The term rake gets thrown around a lot in historical romances. Most of the time, I don’t think it’s warranted. The Oxford English Dictionary informs us that rake is short for rakehell and mentions the following characteristics that should apply: 1) stylishness (presumably in terms of clothing); 2) dissolution and/or promiscuity, dissolution probably referring to moral laxness of some sort, such as negligence or profligacy. Promiscuity is often referred to in romance novels, but not often shown with, well, profligacy.

Now let’s have a look at John Carre. Let’s get stylish out of the way first:

Every man’s eyes were trained on their tall, rangy Laird dressed like a freebooter: the shoulder armor on his leather jack gleaming in the candlelight; two pistols still shoved under his wide leather belt; an ivory-handled dirk swinging from a scabbard at his hip; his long black hair wet because he refused to wear headgear; his green-and-brown hunting plaid—the color of concealment—draped over one shoulder; his leather breeches and spurred riding boots dull earth brown like the landscape.

[Women swoon and men stare...]

Robyn Carr
Sunrise Point
Mira, $7.99 / April 24, 2012 / $7.99 print, $6.39 digital

Former marine Tom Cavanaugh’s come home to Virgin River, ready to take over his family’s apple orchard and settle down. He knows just what the perfect woman will be like: sweet, decent, maybe a little naive. The marrying kind.

Nothing like Nora Crane. So why can’t he keep his eyes off the striking single mother?

Nora may not have a formal education, but she graduated with honors from the school of hard knocks. She’s been through tough times and she’ll do whatever it takes to support her family, including helping with harvest time at the Cavanaugh’s orchard. …

Both Nora and Tom have their own ideas of what family means. But they’re about to prove each other completely wrong...

Sunrise Point is the nineteenth entry in Robyn Carr’s Virgin River series, but from my experience, you can drop in here and there, at different points along the timeline, and still enjoy your visit.  One notable theme in this series is ex-military heroes, who tend to settle in the isolated mountain town of Virgin River as a haven from their experiences in battle. 

[Love is healing, and healing is love...]

Rachel Spangler
LoveLife
Bold Strokes /April 17, 2012 / $11.40

Life coach Elaine Raitt is educated, elegant, and dedicated to her profession. Blue-collar boi Joey Lang is too insecure to even approach her—that is until her well-meaning but meddling best friend Lisa decides to break the ice and makes Joey a life-coaching appointment with Elaine. A session meant to bring clarity only leaves them both feeling more confused about their purpose in life and love.

Will Joey be able to find the strength to chase the woman of her dreams, and even if she does, will Elaine be willing to risk the life she loves for the woman who could be the love of her life?

LoveLife is the first of Rachel Spangler’s novels that I have read, as well as my first contemporary lesbian romance. Elaine, a life coach, is outwardly polished and beautiful, but inwardly struggling with family relationships.  Joey, who works in a coffee shop, is a working-class woman who loves sports and had to drop out of college to care for her dying mother.  They seem an unlikely couple, but it turns out each has something the other needs.  They work their way from initial attraction, through potential ethical pitfalls of their coaching relationship, to romance.  I know some readers love a long slow build to their romances, and this novel offers that, but for me the chief attraction of the story was Joey’s best friend from age eight, Lisa.

Yes, in a romance about two gay women, I latched onto the Gay Best Friend.

[How do you mean?...]

Christine Merrill
Lady Drusilla’s Road to Ruin
Harlequin/Apr. 3, 2012/$6.25 print, $4.79 digital 

Considered a spinster, Lady Drusilla Rudney has only one role in life: to chaperone her sister. So when her flighty sibling elopes, Dru knows she has to stop her! She employs the help of a traveling companion, who looks harmless enough….

Former army captain John Hendricks is intrigued by this damsel in distress. Once embroiled with her in a mad dash across England, he discovers that Dru is no simpering woman. Her unconventional ways make him want to forget his gentlemanly conduct…and create a scandalall their own!

Lady Drusilla’s Road to Ruin, the latest Regency historical from Christine Merrill, is pure, unadulterated fun.  It’s a road story replete with an elopement to Gretna Green, coaching inns, cross-dressing, and highway robbery, all presented with a wink and a knowing grin.  It’s a special treat for those who love Regencies and are familiar with a host of common story elements, told with a twist.

[Come on, baby, let’s do the twist!...]

Alyssa Everett
A Tryst With Trouble
DP/April 1, 2012/$10.74

Dogged for years by painful gossip about his father’s homosexuality, the Marquess of Beningbrough—Ben, to his friends—has protected himself by becoming the ultimate man’s man. Passed over by suitor after suitor in favor of her pretty but vapid younger sister, clever, forthright Lady Barbara Jeffords has reached the disappointing conclusion most men are shallow, boorish clods. When a philandering footman turns up dead, the two square off: he’s sure she’s determined to pin the crime on his hapless young cousin, while she thinks he means to shift the blame to her sister. To find the real killer, Ben and Barbara must declare a truce that threatens to expose both their buried insecurities and their growing desire for each other.

A Tryst With Trouble is Alyssa Everett’s first novel. It’s a lighthearted Regency with a murder mystery plot, told in first person, alternating between the hero, Ben, and the heroine, Barbara. Yes, a murder mystery can be lighthearted…neither murdered character has any lines, so there’s no chance to develop deep empathy for them.

[But we’re guessing deep empathy develops between hero and heroine—right?...]

The wizard Antryg Windrose’s first appearance is in Barbara Hambly’s fantasy novel The Silent Tower (1986), the gripping opener to one of my favorite trilogies (really more of a duology with a sequel, but who’s counting?). The Silent Tower shows the beginning of a heartbreakingly intense romance between Antryg and Joanna Sheraton, a computer programmer from our world.

Joanna is kidnapped into the fantasy world (the Empire of Ferryth) where most of the story takes place.  For the entire novel, she’s unsure if she can trust Antryg, and he’s unsure if he can trust her; this leads to a cliffhanger ending that isn’t resolved until book two, The Silicon Mage.

(One side note before I go further: since this novel was published in 1986, the computer-related parts of the story are a little dated, in places enough to seem silly. Do not let that stop you!  The rest of the story can more than overcome a few reminiscent giggles.)

[Technology can’t stop true love...]

Portia Da Costa
In the Flesh
HQN/Mar. 20, 2012/ $7.99 print, $6.39 digital

Society already believes she’s a scarlet woman. Why not become one?

Posing nude to appease her now ex-fiancé perhaps wasn’t the most prudent idea Beatrice Weatherly has ever had. With the photographs scrutinized up and down the ton and her brother running them into debt, Beatrice’s hopes of making a respectable marriage are dashed.

After one glance at Beatrice’s infamous racy cabinet cards, wealthy, powerful Edward Ellsworth Richie is soon obsessed with Beatrice’s voluptuous figure. His indecent proposal—one month of hedonistic servitude in exchange for enough money to pay her brother’s debts—is one she can hardly refuse.

Portia Da Costa’s In the Flesh is an erotic romance set in 1890s London.  The story itself is fairly simple: an arrangement of lust and convenience grows into romance; but, as in all stories, the fun is in how the story is told, and the characters.  This novel is all about the characters.

[So what about them? Tell us!...]

This is a slightly unusual post in that I’ll be talking about a nonfiction book, but it’s one that I really think fans of historical romance and period television shows like Downton Abbey will find fascinating. Rose: My Life in Service to Lady Astor is the story of what it was like to be a servant among the very, very rich from the late 1920s through the early 1960s.

In 1928, Rosina Harrison arrived at the illustrious household of the Astor family to take up her new position as personal maid to the infamously temperamental Lady Nancy Astor, who sat in Parliament, entertained royalty, and traveled the world. “She’s not a lady as you would understand a lady” was the butler’s ominous warning. But what no one expected was that the iron-willed Lady Astor was about to meet her match in the no-nonsense, whip-smart girl from the country.

I’d read a lot about the duties of servants in the Victorian and Edwardian eras and, in spirit if not always in method, Rose’s duties were similar to those from earlier decades. The book also covers the duties of male servants, through anecdotes mostly provided by the family’s butler, to whom Rose was a close friend, and a gardener who also served as a floral designer (yes, the Astors had their own floral designer!). 

[Who doesn’t need a good floral designer?...]

Every lady of breeding knows. No one has a good time on a pirate ship. No one, that is, but the pirates. Yet there she was, Merry Wilding—kidnapped in error, taken from a ship bound from New York to England, spirited away in a barrel and swept aboard the infamous Black Joke....There she was, trembling with pleasure in the arms of her achingly handsome, sensationally sensual, golden-haired captor—Devon. From the storm-tossed Atlantic to the languid waters of the Gulf Stream, from a smuggler’s den to a gilded mansion, Merry struggled to escape...to escape the prison of her own reckless passions, the bondage of sweet, bold desire...

The Windflower by Laura London (aka Tom and Sharon Curtis) is one of those classics of the Romance genre perennially referenced as one of the best romance novels ever written. It’s unfortunately out of print, but used copies can be acquired.  Originally published in June 1984, it was reissued in 1995.

The story is an epic of the sort that’s rarely published these days: It’s longer than most modern romances, told from an omniscient point of view, and the language is more elaborate, the sort of prose often parodied as purple.  Occasionally, I did find the language so overblown it became confusing, but for the most part, the style really suited the epic sweep of the story.  The language was a major high point for me, because it surprised me. How? Because The Windflower is actually really, really funny.

[...What do you mean by funny?...]

After hearing of author Dorothy Gilman’s death earlier this year, I returned to the first of her novels that I had read, back when I was a teenager. Though Gilman wrote other books, she was most famous for her “Mrs. Pollifax” series, which followed the adventures of a widowed senior citizen who took up working for the CIA.

Mrs. Pollifax on Safari:

Mrs. Pollifax has been sent on safari by the C.I.A. and told only to take pictures of all of her companions, in order to find the international assassin whose next target is the president of Zambia. It sounded so simple, but shortly after Mrs. Pollifax started taking pictures, someone stole her film. And right after that she was kidnapped by Rhodesian terrorists….

Mrs. Pollifax on Safari was published in 1976 and was the fifth in the series. Knowing nothing of the author, I found a used copy at a local bookstore, and after that sought out every Gilman novel I could find, mostly from the library, though I do own tattered paperback copies of a few.

You might be asking yourself, about now, why I am talking about mysteries in a romance blog. That’s because in Mrs. Pollifax on Safari, Mrs. Emily Pollifax totally gets hit on by a hot widower, Cyrus Reed. That is, they meet in Africa, and he flirts with her, and he puts his life in danger for her, and by the end of the book he’s proposing.

[Whirlwind romances FTW!...]

One of the first romance novels I ever read was Mary Jo Putney’s One Perfect Rose.  The hero, Stephen, is a duke.  When the novel opens he’s just discovered that he’s dying from an unusual stomach ailment and decides to travel, anonymously, to see life before the end.  As you might imagine, he doesn’t die in the end, but there is plenty of angst before that point.

The heroine, Rose, is part of a traveling theater company; she first sees Stephen out in the audience of one of their performances.  Shortly afterward is their meeting, which to me instantly turned Stephen swoonworthy.  A young boy from the troupe has fallen into a raging river.  Stephen is frozen with fear and is not ready to die, but leaps in anyway and saves the boy’s life. He and Rose swiftly fall into liking and from there into love.  It’s lovely to watch them discover each other, both before and after their hasty marriage.

But what made the book for me was the dark moment, or rather, the series of dark moments, given that the novel is about someone who truly believes he will only live a few more months.

[Love like you were dying...]

Romance readers generally know what they want in a hero. Me, I know what I don’t want. What I really, really don’t want. Most of them involve personal hygiene—you know, the kind that gets glossed over in medieval romances, and never gets mentioned in contemporaries unless the author is going for humor.  (Though I confess I would be fascinated to read a romance novel in which the hero did have some of these issues, and the story involved how he and the heroine dealt with them…but that might be too much like real life. The title could be, Anti-Perspirant Means Love. And if you write it, please don’t send it to me.)

You might have gathered by now that I’m not being entirely serious in this post. I have, however, worked seriously hard to uncover the real reasons why these five sins should not appear as part of a romance hero’s list of characteristics.  I did research, and everything.

Okay.  I lied.  I did not do any research for this post.  On to the Top 5 Don’ts!

[What squicks you out?...]

Martha Wells is one of my top favorite fantasy authors, recently back to publishing, after a hiatus, with her new novels The Cloud Roads and The Serpent Sea. It had been quite a while since I’d re-read any Wells, so I decided to revisit her first novel, The Element of Fire. The novel, while focused on the political troubles of the roughly-Elizabethan-era fantasy country of Ile-Rien, also includes a romance. Many romance readers will find it satisfying, in particular for the interesting heroine—though the hot hero doesn’t hurt.

The novel’s hero, Thomas Boniface, is captain of the Queen’s Guard.  He’s described like this: 

the shape and tilt of Thomas’s black eyes gave his face a naturally cynical slant, and that with his dark hair and beard this effect made him resemble certain popular portraits of the Prince of Hell. 

Thomas is a warrior through and through; he gave up his viscountancy and loyalty to his family before he could join the Guard.  He’s the sort of warrior who always knows where his weapons are and what condition they’re in; his rapier and main gauche are almost part of him.

[Is that a rapier in your scabbard, or...?]

Charlie Cochrane
Dreams of a Hero
Carina, $2.99, Feb. 13, 2012

Mild-mannered and unassuming, Miles is on a journey he never expected. After a visit to Greece with his partner, Roger, he begins to experience vivid dreams in which he travels back in history and takes on the role of avenging hero.

Roger notices Miles’s newfound bravery during his waking hours and is concerned that his lover is changing into someone he doesn’t recognize.

When they discover a gay-friendly café is being plagued by violent thugs, Miles is uncharacteristically determined to take action, no matter the cost. Roger argues it would be both dangerous and pointless to intervene, but Miles insists he’s been called to fight an army, and now he’s found one.

My previous exposure to Charlie Cochrane’s work is the first volume of a long series, the historical-set Cambridge Fellows Mysteries, which also includes an ongoing male/male romance.  So I was interested to see what the author would do with a contemporary setting, and at a shorter length.

[Us too! What’d you find?...]

Cath Crowley
Graffiti Moon
Random House, $19.99/$10.99 digital, Feb. 14, 2012

Lucy is in love with Shadow, a mysterious graffiti artist.

Ed thought he was in love with Lucy, until she broke his nose.

Dylan loves Daisy, but throwing eggs at her probably wasn’t the best way to show it.

Jazz and Leo are slowly encircling each other.

An intense and exhilarating 24 hours in the lives of four teenagers on the verge: of adulthood, of finding out just who they are, and who they want to be.

Cath Crowley’s Graffiti Moon is a truly intriguing young adult novel that I think adults, too, will enjoy, particularly those who like to read about romances that involve work:  working to look beneath surface impressions, working to negotiate, working to be truthful with one another. It’s also a romance, or rather a group of romances, narrated in a complex web of revelations.

[See for yourself...]