Maya Banks
Author of Rush
About the Author
Maya Banks is a contemporary romance author. Her books include The Surrender Trilogy, The Slow Burn series, The Breathless Trilogy, Colters' Legacy, KGI Novel series, The Sweet series and The Enforcers series. She has made The New York Times Best Seller List with titles like, Just One Touch. show more (Bowker Author Biography) show less
Disambiguation Notice:
Maya Banks is the pen name for Sharon Long.
Image credit: Photos courtesy of Ben Riley Johnson, Jr.
Series
Works by Maya Banks
The Mistress [with bonus book: 'Wanted: Mistress and Mother'] (2012) — Author — 73 copies, 2 reviews
The Highlander Series 3-Book Bundle: In Bed with a Highlander, Seduction of a Highland Lass, Never Love a Highlander (The Highlanders) (2012) 30 copies
Unforgettable: Enticed by His Forgotten Lover [and] Wanted by Her Lost Love (2014) 25 copies, 1 review
Always Mine 17 copies
Blame the Rain 16 copies
The Mistress 4 copies
Maya Banks 2 copies
"About the Author" 2 copies
The Cozakis Bride (L. Graham) | The Tycoon's Secret Affair (M. Banks) / Mistress by Contract (H. Bianchin) (2015) 1 copy
The Tycoon's Secret Affair aka The Affair (M. Banks) | A Man in a Million (J. Bird) | Island Time (S. Wiggs) (2013) — Contributor — 1 copy
KGI Series (12 Book Series) 1 copy
Colters´Legacy, #5.5 1 copy
Associated Works
Tagged
Common Knowledge
- Legal name
- Long, Sharon
- Other names
- Banks, Maya
Long, Sharon - Birthdate
- 1964
- Gender
- female
- Agent
- Kimberly A. Whalen (The Whalen Agency, Ltd.)
- Short biography
- Maya Banks is the pen name for Sharon Long. Escaping into the pages of a book is something she's loved to do since she was a child. Now she crafts her own worlds and characters and enjoys spending as much time with them as possible. A southern girl born and bred, she loves life below the Mason Dixon, and more importantly, loves bringing southern characters and settings to life in her stories.
She lives in southeast Texas with her husband, three children and assortment of pets. When she's not writing, she loves to hunt and fish, bum on the beach, play poker and travel. - Places of residence
- Texas, USA
- Map Location
- USA
- Disambiguation notice
- Maya Banks is the pen name for Sharon Long.
Members
Discussions
Help! Can't remember title for romance novel about pregnant heroine with eclampsia in Name that Book (October 2016)
Historical Romance set in Scotland/England in Name that Book (February 2016)
Reviews
I rated this three stars, but it is not a three star book. Here is my quandary. This is absolutely one of the worst books I have ever read BUT my enjoyment of the read is one of the primary considerations when I rate a book, and I enjoyed the hell out of this one. I quite literally could not stop laughing whilst reading. I get romances on audio so I can listen to them as I fall asleep, drifting off on thoughts of beautiful places and gorgeous, generous, sexually gifted men. Colters' Woman show more though did not lull me to sleep. This book kept me awake. It is not an exaggeration to say that in the first 2/3 of the book I did not go more than 5 minutes in the audio without laughing. I am not talking about a smile or a derisive snort, i am talking about cry-laughing alone in my room. Banks must have been on the good drugs when she wrote this one.
The premise (is this a premise?): The Colter boys live in a place (as we used to say about Michigan Tech when I was a lithesome coed) where the men are men, the women are scarce and the sheep are scared. They are looking for a wife. 1-for-all-3. Now, family is everything to me, but (there are so many ways I could finish this sentence, but I am going to leave it here and let anyone who reads this sentence finish it as they wish.) So the Brothers C are sitting around waiting for THE ONE, certain they will know her when the see her. Where they are going to see her I am not sure. There is only one woman anywhere nearby and they have already determined that she, the sheriff, is not THE ONE. Then, hallelujah! Adam finds a woman unconscious in a ditch and gets hard (ew!) and knows she is THE ONE, He carries her inside, She is suffering from exposure and dehydration and running from her murderous husband who is a really uncompelling villain.. As she hangs limply in Adam's arms, Ryan and Ethan see her. Sho 'nuff, schwing!schwing! Blood flow don't lie. She is THE ONE! They are all in love! And it all follows from there. I don't want to tell the whole story, and honestly the story beyond what I have shared really doesn't matter.
So all that takes me back to my first sentence, about how I don't know how to rate this. As noted this is objectively terrible in every way, The story, the writing, just everything is terrible. A single star would be a gift. BUT. If I had picked up a comedy book and it made me laugh this hard and consistently it would be a 5-star. Deciding on the rating turned out to be a bigger dilemma than I expected from a book where the primary plot can be condensed down to "3 holes no waiting." Thank god the Colters' parents stopped at 3 or they would have had to find THE TWO or else organize some sort of shift system. That would be complicated, but once you read the mechanics of their various 4-ways you will have to concede that all are clearly masters of trigonometry and geometry, and they know how to make gravity work for them, so an erotic work-wheel would likely be a cinch for these boys.
So do I recommend you read this? If you are looking for sexy material I think the answer is no. My jaw muscles started to ache in sympathy during every sex scene, to say nothing of my sphincter. If you are reading for the romance my answer is also no. There is nothing romantic about three men getting boners looking at an unconscious woman they have never seen before and instantly deciding they will spend the rest of their lives with her. Even more unromantic is a woman who has made a terrible decision in choosing her first husband and then decides what the hell, yeah three horny brothers I met an hour ago sound good to me. However, if you are looking to laugh and laugh at purple prose and instalust and the poetic pronouncements of deeply lonely cowboys, and if you are a reader who will take pleasure as you marvel at the unbounded ingenuity of three brothers longing to have simultaneous sex with the same women, well then you really need to get your hands on this very special addition to the literary canon. A one-star for nearly everything, a five-star for being a hell of a lot more fun than a trip to the circus. Today that equals a three-star. show less
The premise (is this a premise?): The Colter boys live in a place (as we used to say about Michigan Tech when I was a lithesome coed) where the men are men, the women are scarce and the sheep are scared. They are looking for a wife. 1-for-all-3. Now, family is everything to me, but (there are so many ways I could finish this sentence, but I am going to leave it here and let anyone who reads this sentence finish it as they wish.) So the Brothers C are sitting around waiting for THE ONE, certain they will know her when the see her. Where they are going to see her I am not sure. There is only one woman anywhere nearby and they have already determined that she, the sheriff, is not THE ONE. Then, hallelujah! Adam finds a woman unconscious in a ditch and gets hard (ew!) and knows she is THE ONE, He carries her inside, She is suffering from exposure and dehydration and running from her murderous husband who is a really uncompelling villain.. As she hangs limply in Adam's arms, Ryan and Ethan see her. Sho 'nuff, schwing!schwing! Blood flow don't lie. She is THE ONE! They are all in love! And it all follows from there. I don't want to tell the whole story, and honestly the story beyond what I have shared really doesn't matter.
So all that takes me back to my first sentence, about how I don't know how to rate this. As noted this is objectively terrible in every way, The story, the writing, just everything is terrible. A single star would be a gift. BUT. If I had picked up a comedy book and it made me laugh this hard and consistently it would be a 5-star. Deciding on the rating turned out to be a bigger dilemma than I expected from a book where the primary plot can be condensed down to "3 holes no waiting." Thank god the Colters' parents stopped at 3 or they would have had to find THE TWO or else organize some sort of shift system. That would be complicated, but once you read the mechanics of their various 4-ways you will have to concede that all are clearly masters of trigonometry and geometry, and they know how to make gravity work for them, so an erotic work-wheel would likely be a cinch for these boys.
So do I recommend you read this? If you are looking for sexy material I think the answer is no. My jaw muscles started to ache in sympathy during every sex scene, to say nothing of my sphincter. If you are reading for the romance my answer is also no. There is nothing romantic about three men getting boners looking at an unconscious woman they have never seen before and instantly deciding they will spend the rest of their lives with her. Even more unromantic is a woman who has made a terrible decision in choosing her first husband and then decides what the hell, yeah three horny brothers I met an hour ago sound good to me. However, if you are looking to laugh and laugh at purple prose and instalust and the poetic pronouncements of deeply lonely cowboys, and if you are a reader who will take pleasure as you marvel at the unbounded ingenuity of three brothers longing to have simultaneous sex with the same women, well then you really need to get your hands on this very special addition to the literary canon. A one-star for nearly everything, a five-star for being a hell of a lot more fun than a trip to the circus. Today that equals a three-star. show less
I have a love/hate relationship with the books of Maya Banks. The first few that I read were pretty good--not great, but not awful. The more of her books that I read, though, the more negatively I feel about them. The repetitive nature of her books really makes me not want to read anything else by her.
For example, Burn is a lot like Fever, the previous book in the Breathless Trilogy. Ash is a carbon copy of Jace. Josie is pretty much a copy of Bethany. Both guys are aggressive, show more super-stalking, controlling creepers who speak mainly in fragmented sentences. (Writers seem to have forgotten one of the first lessons in English: Subject + Predicate = Sentence; a sentence with no clear subject is a fragment.) Instead of having a homeless recovering addict as the heroine, we have a nearly homeless artist who also happens to be a dabbler of BDSM and is in an abusive relationship. And has anyone noticed that no heroine in this series has a full family unit. They've all been orphaned, either by death or by the parent just leaving them on their own.
The dialogue is awful. Aside from the previously mentioned issues, the way the characters talk is worse than a low-budget movie written by someone with less of a comprehension of the English language than you'd find on reality television. I have seen deeper conversations between the Kardashians. I wasn't expecting high brow literature with this book, but I definitely hoped for something better than this.
I could see myself enjoying her work more if every book could, in one way or another, stand on its own. I absolutely hate reading the same story over and over. It seems like she doesn't put the proper effort into developing the story, which makes me hesitant to put forth any proper effort toward reading what she writes. I understand the idea of "if it ain't broke, don't fix it", but the repetition of basic story elements through her stories could lead to a case of "too much of a good thing ain't good for you". In other words, her style is broken. She's potentially driving away readers by sticking to her beloved formula.
I want to like the book. I really do, but I just can't see myself recommending it to anyone. It is unremarkable and weak and just a waste of time. show less
For example, Burn is a lot like Fever, the previous book in the Breathless Trilogy. Ash is a carbon copy of Jace. Josie is pretty much a copy of Bethany. Both guys are aggressive, show more super-stalking, controlling creepers who speak mainly in fragmented sentences. (Writers seem to have forgotten one of the first lessons in English: Subject + Predicate = Sentence; a sentence with no clear subject is a fragment.) Instead of having a homeless recovering addict as the heroine, we have a nearly homeless artist who also happens to be a dabbler of BDSM and is in an abusive relationship. And has anyone noticed that no heroine in this series has a full family unit. They've all been orphaned, either by death or by the parent just leaving them on their own.
The dialogue is awful. Aside from the previously mentioned issues, the way the characters talk is worse than a low-budget movie written by someone with less of a comprehension of the English language than you'd find on reality television. I have seen deeper conversations between the Kardashians. I wasn't expecting high brow literature with this book, but I definitely hoped for something better than this.
I could see myself enjoying her work more if every book could, in one way or another, stand on its own. I absolutely hate reading the same story over and over. It seems like she doesn't put the proper effort into developing the story, which makes me hesitant to put forth any proper effort toward reading what she writes. I understand the idea of "if it ain't broke, don't fix it", but the repetition of basic story elements through her stories could lead to a case of "too much of a good thing ain't good for you". In other words, her style is broken. She's potentially driving away readers by sticking to her beloved formula.
I want to like the book. I really do, but I just can't see myself recommending it to anyone. It is unremarkable and weak and just a waste of time. show less
Good gravy, this is awful. I was going to push through to the end since I'm over halfway through, but I picked it back up this morning, read a paragraph, and said, "Nope. Life's too short."
Bullet points of wretchedness:
--SO so so repeatingly repetitive. OMG. By 175 pages in, we have learned only three salient things about the couple: 1) heroine was married to hero's late best friend; he's loved her all along; the best friend knew and was okay with it; 2) she's longed for a Dom/sub show more relationship for always but couldn't ask her husband for it because of his past; he's a dominant who's never pursued a serious relationship because of his love for her; 3) he's bringing a new partner into the business he ran with his late best friend. And every three paragraphs or so, one or the other of the main characters agonizes over one (or several) of these points WITHOUT EVER COMING TO ANY CONCLUSIONS OR ADDING ANY NEW INFORMATION. I actually yelled "We know!" at the book at one point yesterday.
--The characters talk about Dom/sub relations ad infinitum. And there's nothing compelling about their discussions--not as a discussion of the practice and not as revelations of their characters. It's as though the author feels she has to very gently pull her reader along to this very very strange, very very shocking, but I promise you it's really okay if you look at it this way, idea. Which is *weird* (this was published post-Fifty Shades of Grey, so, again, we know) and kind of insulting, honestly. It's like an inside- out version of protesting too much. The insistence on the convincing starts to make it feel like there's something wrong with it after all. Which, just, GTFO. And ALSO, if you DO feel like your readers need convincing, the best way to do that is by showing the relationship in action, not by having two characters sitting on the couch spewing a bad wiki article about BDSM.
--The DOM/sub stuff is presented oddly. The hero describes it almost as if it's a stereotypical* 1950s marital situation. (I take care of everything and make all decisions; you do exactly what I say, always.) Which, I mean, if that's your kink, sure, you do you. But as an explanation of what it's about, it's *strange.* It's like, almost, but no. And, memo: Being a Dom does not give you license to be creepy af. The male MC does all kinds of borderline abusive stuff like stalking the female MC, dictating the FMC's behavior before he has any "right" within a mutually consensual agreement to do so, and insisting on removing the FMC from her accustomed environment.
--The author interrupts sex scenes to give us character interiority we've already heard a thousand times. What?
--And, possibly the single most maddening thing: when discussing Dom/sub relations, the characters invariably refer to Doms as men and subs as women. *angry kermit arms* I can excuse this on occasion because that is the particular make up in this story and it would be natural in dialogue for the characters to insert their own situation into a general discussion. But it happens over and over. References that have no need to be gendered *whatsoever* are constantly gendered as Dom = male, sub = female. Like so: "'I know some Dominants... Well, I've heard that they punish their women if they disobey or displease them.'"** THEIR WOMEN? Aside from the fact that the language plays into that weird, limiting perceived 1950s thing, some Doms are women! Some male Doms have male subs! Gosh, sometimes they're BOTH women! Take all of your erasures *waves arms about encompassing the all of it* and get. out. *retires to quiet corner to take deep breaths*
...And that is why I'm not finishing this book.
*I know many, many marriages in the 50s did not look like this. But you know the image we all have in our heads? Dude goes to work with the only car. Lady stays home tending the home and meets him at the door more dressed up then I've ever been and takes his briefcase while handing him his slippers and a drink? That.
**Page 101 if anyone cares. show less
Bullet points of wretchedness:
--SO so so repeatingly repetitive. OMG. By 175 pages in, we have learned only three salient things about the couple: 1) heroine was married to hero's late best friend; he's loved her all along; the best friend knew and was okay with it; 2) she's longed for a Dom/sub show more relationship for always but couldn't ask her husband for it because of his past; he's a dominant who's never pursued a serious relationship because of his love for her; 3) he's bringing a new partner into the business he ran with his late best friend. And every three paragraphs or so, one or the other of the main characters agonizes over one (or several) of these points WITHOUT EVER COMING TO ANY CONCLUSIONS OR ADDING ANY NEW INFORMATION. I actually yelled "We know!" at the book at one point yesterday.
--The characters talk about Dom/sub relations ad infinitum. And there's nothing compelling about their discussions--not as a discussion of the practice and not as revelations of their characters. It's as though the author feels she has to very gently pull her reader along to this very very strange, very very shocking, but I promise you it's really okay if you look at it this way, idea. Which is *weird* (this was published post-Fifty Shades of Grey, so, again, we know) and kind of insulting, honestly. It's like an inside- out version of protesting too much. The insistence on the convincing starts to make it feel like there's something wrong with it after all. Which, just, GTFO. And ALSO, if you DO feel like your readers need convincing, the best way to do that is by showing the relationship in action, not by having two characters sitting on the couch spewing a bad wiki article about BDSM.
--The DOM/sub stuff is presented oddly. The hero describes it almost as if it's a stereotypical* 1950s marital situation. (I take care of everything and make all decisions; you do exactly what I say, always.) Which, I mean, if that's your kink, sure, you do you. But as an explanation of what it's about, it's *strange.* It's like, almost, but no. And, memo: Being a Dom does not give you license to be creepy af. The male MC does all kinds of borderline abusive stuff like stalking the female MC, dictating the FMC's behavior before he has any "right" within a mutually consensual agreement to do so, and insisting on removing the FMC from her accustomed environment.
--The author interrupts sex scenes to give us character interiority we've already heard a thousand times. What?
--And, possibly the single most maddening thing: when discussing Dom/sub relations, the characters invariably refer to Doms as men and subs as women. *angry kermit arms* I can excuse this on occasion because that is the particular make up in this story and it would be natural in dialogue for the characters to insert their own situation into a general discussion. But it happens over and over. References that have no need to be gendered *whatsoever* are constantly gendered as Dom = male, sub = female. Like so: "'I know some Dominants... Well, I've heard that they punish their women if they disobey or displease them.'"** THEIR WOMEN? Aside from the fact that the language plays into that weird, limiting perceived 1950s thing, some Doms are women! Some male Doms have male subs! Gosh, sometimes they're BOTH women! Take all of your erasures *waves arms about encompassing the all of it* and get. out. *retires to quiet corner to take deep breaths*
...And that is why I'm not finishing this book.
*I know many, many marriages in the 50s did not look like this. But you know the image we all have in our heads? Dude goes to work with the only car. Lady stays home tending the home and meets him at the door more dressed up then I've ever been and takes his briefcase while handing him his slippers and a drink? That.
**Page 101 if anyone cares. show less
Jace is an overbearing, obsessive, possessive, foul-mouthed and controlling male. Bethany is homeless, desperate and needy. She's hungry and struggling to keep any shred of self respect that she has left. I felt badly for her. This "romance" was more like sexual predator and reluctant participant. Jace is upfront and clear of his need to dominate, dictate and control. His honesty is is ONLY positive quality. Otherwise his sexual vices and personality flaws ultimately skew him as creepy. show more Still curious? Borrow only or dismiss entirely. show less
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Statistics
- Works
- 135
- Also by
- 8
- Members
- 22,624
- Popularity
- #937
- Rating
- 3.8
- Reviews
- 1,133
- ISBNs
- 911
- Languages
- 15
- Favorited
- 43
