What Are You Reading Week of August 13

I started Scorched by Rachel Butler this morning - I just love this series!

I read Writ on Water by Melanie Jackson, which I liked a lot. I'm not sure I was totally convinced by the romance, but I really liked the storyline.

On Saturday I read Say You Love ME By Johanna Lindsey then I Sunday I read The Loving Scondrel next Malory series about Jeremy Malory By same author. They were so ggod that I read each in a day. Now I am reading The Present By Johanna, which I will hopw will fill in some blanks about great grandma, the Gypsy. I am enjoying her writtings so much that I went to goodwill & bought some of her other books. Let me know if you read or have read any of hers

I finished A Hopeless Romantic by Harriet Evans yesterday - really liked it and will definitely check out other books by this author.

Started Remember When this morning so will see how that goes. :o)

I'm reading An Unlikely Governess by Karen Ranney. So far, I'm not impressed, but I did get the book at Half Price Books for $1.

I'm reading that as an emotional vacation from Time Traveler's Wife, which I'm re-reading due to my excitement at the announcement that they are getting ready to film it with Eric Bana and Rachel McAdams.

Sue, I read all of Johanna Lindsey's books, all in all, I liked them very much.

Started Twice the temptation by Suzanne Enoch this morning, am not as far along as I would have hoped, but so far it looks promising. I wonder how she will do the change from the historical to Sam & Rick's part of the book.

Julia

sue - I'm also a pretty big Johanna Lindsey fan. When I first discovered her, I read just about everything I could get my hands on by her. I haven't read many of her westerns though. You may want to check out this group's thread on that author - it's pretty far down the page, but you'll see it if you keep scrolling.

I'm a big Johanna Lindsey fan too. Hearts Aflame was the first romance I ever read. I still love her, but I embrace her limitations. She is at her best, IMO, in the Medieval genre. Her European/Regencys are hit or miss and her Westerns can be pretty trite.

I finished The Forbidden Lord by Sabrina Jeffries and started The Dangerous Lord this morning. I am really liking this trilogy - probably even more than the books in her School For Heiresses series.

Finished Dawn on a Distant Shore last night. It was just as good as Into the Wilderness if not better! Started Lake in the Clouds, can't wait to see how it turns out!

I started Dead Silence by Brenda Novak last night; it's the first in a trilogy.

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I've been reading Lara - by Beatrice Small this week. I know a lot of you have said that she's horrible... this is the first book of hers that I've read. But I think over the years I keep buying her books because the backcovers sound good - but then I never get around to reading them.

It's certainly not great - and yes, I'm getting really annoyed with the word "manroot". Also I'm not sure this particular one should be classified as romance (though it is). It's more of a fantasy novel, with lots of dispassionate sex that would be more like rape if the girl actually fought back instead of resigning herself to being a slave.

I'll probably keep reading just to see if there is a point at the end of the book, but I wouldn't really recommend it. Of course, I might not finish before it's due back at the library and who knows if I'll get it out again...though I hate to leave a book unfinished.

Ilithyia, if you want to read a good Bertrice Small I would recommend Skye's youngest brother Conn's story in A Love for All Time. It is the Small that reads like a romance novel to and not a sexual saga of depravity and degradation.

I'm still working on the Patricia Ryan but I'm having a hard-time with what feels like 20th Century gender roles in a medieval.

Thanks for the suggestion, Lucy! How are the rest of the Skye books? Because I think I have a few of those, and I hate to start a series in the middle.

I started Fool Moon by Jim Butcher last night. I had a bit of an issue the other day and haven't really been doing too much reading. Long story short it turns out someone was sneaking into my house last month while everyone was gone and charged $150.00 worth of porn. Very upsetting would be a mild understatement.

Yuck, Jenson!

OMG, Jen. That's despicable! I hope you don't have to pay for that...and that you find out who was doing it.

Hope things go better for you.

On the upside, Fool Moon is a good book....

Demon, you are kidding! How awful. Do you know the person?

My self-imposed reading hiatus lasted until I got that big Amazon box yesterday!

I just finished Brenda Joyce's newest de Warrene family book, The Perfect Bride. As some of you may remember, I trashed #5 The Stolen Bride as drivel and an insult to my intelligence on several levels, but I figured enough time had gone by that she should have gotten better with #7. WRONG! Entirely too much meaningless conflict, which is my #1 pet peeve in a romance novel anyway. It could be just me, but Perfect Bride was just as bad as Stolen Bride.

I can't understand it. I really enjoy Joyce's Francesca Cahill lady detective series. Has anyone else read it, and what did you think?

Up next is The Serpent Prince by Elizabeth Hoyt, Lady Be Bad: The Merry Widows Series by Candice Hern, and Tangled Up In You by Rachel Gibson, which I REALLY hope is better than her last one, I'm In No Mood For Love.

Have a great weekend everybody!

CC

CC, Is Brenda Joyce still writing the Francesca Cahill series? I was reading those & enjoyed the first couple of them, but then they began to feel like a soap opera series to me.

Recently finished, Julianne MacLean's Love According to Lily, Jacquie D'Alessandro's Sleepless at Midnight, and Elizabeth Thornton's Almost a Princess.

Love According to Lily follows James' sister who is in love with his best friend. I'd read James' story in To Marry the Duke and enjoyed it, but overall both are just okay.

Sleepless at Midnight was enjoyable, and part of her new Mayhem in Mayfair series. But again, not a keeper.

My favorite out of the three was Almost a Princess, which had a good intrigue plot as the hero is trying to catch a murderer. It also centers on women's rights and issues that women faced when they married (i.e. no property rights, becoming the possession of the husband, domestic abuse, etc.). I enjoyed the romance, but it is a little more subtle than most of the fare out there these days.

Well, we had a suspicion someone was getting in the house and a suspicion of who it was, but since nothing was stolen and I had no proof anyone had been in the house, I didn't want to involve the police (which I should have). I'm pretty sure they were getting in through the kitchen window and we started locking all the windows right after that. I don't think anyone has gotten in since. I didn't find out about the porn until a couple days ago and we did file a police report. Unfortunately we still had to pay the stupid bill. I've been trying not to freak out about it.

CC- The Serpent Prince sounds good. Please let me know what you think.

Book, the last Cahill story, Deadly Kisses, was published in 2006, so I think there will be more.

Demon, if you haven't read the other two in the Prince series, you must! They are fabulous, and I think you would love them. They're dark, erotic and edgy. The first two are The Raven Prince and The Leopard Prince. All three are on my updated "fire list".

CC

I just finished Twice the temptation and liked it very much. I liked how she connected Rick's forbears with his life today. She also picked up other people from her historicals into the contemporary half of the book. Now I'm looking forward to the next full sized Sam & Rick story.

Julia

I read Succubus Blues by Richelle Mead. I really (much to my surprise) liked it. I'm preordering the next one...

I started The Queen in Winter (which is trade-sized in amazon.com's bargain books section, incase anyone wants it cheap), which is pretty good so far. Also started three other books that I'm not sure I like, so who knows when I'll finish reading those.

Demon, that is awful. I'm creeped out for you. Ugh!

I finished Love according to Lily by Julianne MacLean last night and liked it very much. Now I'm on her next book Portrait of a lover.

Julia

Please help!!! I'm looking for a book I read in the 1980s (I think)
Plot: Harriet meets Jake at a party. Get together, then she gets stranded on an island. There she's forced to marry an older man and gives birth to daughter Victoria.
She ends up rich and at the end of the book Harriet and Jake get back together.

It's a 2 part saga.