{"id":99,"date":"2009-01-14T00:59:40","date_gmt":"2009-01-14T05:59:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/moriahjovan.com\/mojo\/?p=99"},"modified":"2025-07-31T15:52:36","modified_gmt":"2025-07-31T20:52:36","slug":"romance-novel-notes-from-2008","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/moriahjovan.com\/talesofdunham\/blog\/romance-novel-notes-from-2008\/","title":{"rendered":"Romance novel notes from 2008"},"content":{"rendered":"

There were the 3 Georgian historicals I liked, but thought were fairly flawed<\/a> and Almost a Gentleman<\/em><\/a>, the one erotic Georgian I couldn\u2019t finish<\/a>. I did, however, really enjoy The Bookseller\u2019s Daughter<\/em><\/a> and The Slightest Provocation<\/em><\/a>, so I\u2019ll give the author the benefit of the doubt no matter what.<\/p>\n

Then there are the ones on the sidebar to the right<\/span>, some of which are romance. Under My Skin<\/em> by Jenny Gilliam<\/a>, which I liked enough that I only stopped reading when I had to tend to various obligations, like Tax Deductions 1 and 2. And congrats to her for its sale to Amira! (A little late on that congrats, Jenny. Mea culpa<\/em>.)<\/p>\n

\"CoverCatch of the Day<\/em><\/a> by Kristan Higgins<\/a>, which made me bawl and laugh and cringe in vicarious embarrassment, which was only cute\/sweet because it wasn\u2019t happening to me. Also, her Just One of the Guys<\/em><\/a>, which was good but not as heartwrenching as Catch of the Day<\/em>. Her first effort, Fools Rush In<\/em><\/a> (which I actually read in 2009, sorry!), I found at a thrift store for a quarter and damme if that wasn\u2019t a bargain! All 3 books are written in first person, though Catch of the Day<\/em> and Just One of the Guys<\/em> are in present tense (I like!) and Fools Rush In<\/em> was in past tense. (I crack myself up.) You must have a box of Kleenex for these books. I remember this author\u2019s name. For me, that\u2019s like saying her books are auto-buy and lo and behold! She\u2019s got a new title, Too Good To Be True<\/em><\/a>. Honestly, I think she\u2019s more what people call \u201cwomen\u2019s fiction\u201d because she seems to focus more on the heroine\u2019s journey than the romance. Word of warning: Don\u2019t glom this author.<\/p>\n

Eva Gale\u2019s short stories \u201cDesperate Measures<\/a>\u201d and \u201cScorpion\u2019s Orchid<\/a>\u201d (post-apoc\/steampunk). Loved both, though not crazy about short story format (that\u2019s my own failing); the short form worked better in \u201cScorpion\u2019s Orchid.\u201d And, oh, you must, must, must, must, MUST go catch Eva\u2019s free reads<\/a>. \u201cThe Seduction of Gabriel Stewart\u201d was wonderful and part of what I want to read, as both a spiritual and<\/em> sexual woman: a smooth meld of the erotic and the faithful.<\/p>\n

Susan Elizabeth Phillips\u2019s Natural Born Charmer<\/em><\/a>. Of course I read it straight through, but SEP\u2019s losing her grip on me, I think. Not sure why because she\u2019s got a book on my keeper shelf and in this one, though the heroine was an artist, she wasn\u2019t flighty and she was quick to catch on to what was going on around her, so I was good with that.<\/p>\n

Patti Shenberger\u2019s The Captain\u2019s Wench<\/em><\/a>. I\u2019m a sucker for seamen (heh) stories, but this story suffered from some logical fallacies like the fact that the heroine just accepted the strange man in her house was a ghost and bantered with him as if he were an old friend. Like there\u2019s really nothing strange about that<\/em> situation at all. It was a short story\/novella, so it could\u2019ve been a word length requirement problem.<\/p>\n

I read The Dragon Earl<\/em><\/a>, which I really enjoyed. The first chapter on the author\u2019s website<\/a> got me enough that I remembered it when I saw it at Wal-Mart.<\/p>\n

Forbidden Shores<\/em><\/a> didn\u2019t impress me. I never felt like any of the characters actually loved each other and that the HEA (happily ever after) was forced.<\/p>\n

The following has spoilers. Highlight the blank spaces to read.<\/p>\n

\"Cover<\/p>\n

Last but not least, this: A Mermaid\u2019s Kiss<\/em><\/a> by Joey W. Hill. I don\u2019t know what to say about this because I\u2019m conflicted in so many directions, yet it\u2019s stuck with me ever since I read it. I hesitate to do a review on it, but here I am 3 months later, still thinking about it. It\u2019s supposed to be erotic. It\u2019s not. The reasoning for the sex between the hero and heroine is flimsy at best, though I wasn\u2019t any more put off by the more, ah, unusual<\/em> aspects of it than I was by any of the other sex scenes, none of which were necessary to the story. The hero and heroine have sex with her in mermaid form and her in pixie form.<\/span> I also didn\u2019t like the fact that the heroine had so many configurations mermaid, pixie, human<\/span>. The sex just \u2026 annoyed me. Why? Because I thought this was a terribly spiritual book with underpinnings of faith (some amalgam of Christianity and goddess mythos) and a keen insight on human behavior. In a lot of ways, its underlying theme reminded me of Dogma<\/em><\/a>, although in a gut-wrenching way and not a satiric way. The sex got in the way of the character development (and worldbuilding) and pulled me out the story every single time. And it wasn\u2019t even good sex.<\/p>\n

It took me a while to write this post and 2008 was a busy year, but the ones I forgot must not have made an impact on me.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There were the 3 Georgian historicals I liked, but thought were fairly flawed and Almost a Gentleman, the one erotic Georgian I couldn\u2019t finish. I did, however, really enjoy The Bookseller\u2019s Daughter and The Slightest Provocation, so I\u2019ll give the author the benefit of the doubt no matter what. Then there are the ones on […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[560,595,532,593],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-99","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-erotica","category-fantasy","category-reading","category-womens-fiction"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/moriahjovan.com\/talesofdunham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/moriahjovan.com\/talesofdunham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/moriahjovan.com\/talesofdunham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/moriahjovan.com\/talesofdunham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/moriahjovan.com\/talesofdunham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=99"}],"version-history":[{"count":17,"href":"https:\/\/moriahjovan.com\/talesofdunham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16987,"href":"https:\/\/moriahjovan.com\/talesofdunham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99\/revisions\/16987"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/moriahjovan.com\/talesofdunham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=99"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/moriahjovan.com\/talesofdunham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=99"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/moriahjovan.com\/talesofdunham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=99"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}