I am so incredibly thankful to everyone who provided feedback, prompt suggestions and encouragement. I look forward to a great month of romance-related conversations. Feel free to respond to these prompts however you want starting on May 1st. It can be a tweet, a blog post, an IG post, just add the #RomBkLove hashtag. You can also comment with a link to your blog and I will post a round-up of everyone participating during the first week. I just want to hear from you and fill my timeline with romance-related chatter!
The Prompts:
1: Gateway Romance 2: Tropes, Tropes, Tropes 3: Meet Cute 4: Secondary Characters 5: Romantic Elements 6: Groveling 7: Diverse Romance 8: Heroes & Heroines 9: Category Romance 10: Pets 11: Historical 12: Most Read or Reread 13: Contemporaries 14: Covers 15: Bicker and Banter 16: Dark Moment 17: Dukes, Dukes, Dukes 18: Not a Duke in sight 19: Romantic Suspense 20: Unforgettable Line 21: Auto-buy 22: Adaptation 23: Romancelandia 24: All in a day's work 25: Series Love 26: PNR, SFR, Fantasy 27: Romance Icons 28: Novellas/Shorts 29: Friendships 30: Old School/Classics 31: HEAs
It is a story about finding a safe harbor, working toward self-acceptance, and starting over. There really great depictions of female friendships, a richly drawn small town community and little femdom kink to spice things up.
Uma has been on the run for months, hiding from her abusive ex. She has comes to Blackwood, VA, because the small town has a clinic that offers free laser tattoo removal treatments to domestic violence victims. Her gas gauge is on empty literally and metaphorically when she answers a very odd ad for a living-in-helper to a cantankerous old lady.
Ivan is the ex-con next-door, a gentle giant, that helps teaches self-defense courses along with his sister at the local gym and makes his living as iron-worker/blacksmith. He carries a lot of emotional baggage of his own, but works very hard to make sure he is someone Uma can trust with her body and her heart.
I really liked that while Ivan suffers from white-knight syndrome, in his desire to fix up Uma, he isn't the one that saves her and that he realizes that he can't do that work for her. In the end Uma saves herself and Ivan.
I really enjoyed this and immediately picked up the 2nd book. Under Her Skin is currently on sale for 99 cents, and it includes a seven chapter preview of book 2, so don't be alarmed when Under Her Skin start wrapping up around the 67% mark.
(Uma is a white, despite her Indian name, her mom is a hippie who lives in India at a Ashram).
This book revisits a lot of the same themes present in the first book, self-forgiveness, finding a community and people who see past the marks of violence to see the person underneath.
I don't think this book will work for everyone as it is a Doctor/Patient romance, where ethical boundaries are certainly crossed. There were definitely many moments where my eyebrows almost flew off my face. I
Clay Navarro, is an undercover ATF agent who comes to Blackwood to to hide out and get some tattoos removed while he waits for a big court date against the big biker gang he had infiltrated. He has serious PTSD issues, that he is self-medicating with vodka and is not sure whether his worries about mole in his office are PTSD-related paranoia or a legitimate concern. He has cut himself off his team and is struggling to figure out who he is anymore.
Dr. Georgette Hadley is pumping herself full of hormones as she prepares to be artificially inseminated with her late husband's sperm. She questions her instincts and feelings when she agrees to start treating Clay, off the book and after-hours. Her attraction to Clay, despite his undisclosed but certainly dangerous background, makes her recall her reckless youth, and how her life almost derailed once.
I don't think this book was completely successful at untangling consent issues but I did like that while both George and Clay are fucked up emotionally, they are still worthy of love. They are not over their pains or issues at the end of the book but they have made a commitment to figuring those things out together rather than rejecting each other because they see themselves as too broken.
I am a little disappointed that book three is not about Jessie (Ivan's sister and George's neighbor). She is begging for a HEA.
(Clay is of Peruvian decent and he faces a lot racial and ethnic-based abuse as part of his undercover work in criminal biker gangs)
Haven was a great book to end this mini-binge with. Haven was an emotionally intense and surprisingly fun story about finding an unlikely but deep connection in traumatic circumstances. The pacing through out was fantastic but particularly in the pulse-pounding early chapters. The dynamics of Claudia and Shep's relationship are complex, as they are hyper-aware of how wary everyone is of intensity & of the limited nature of their acquaintance. They honestly wrestle with how fraught it can be to untangle their actual experience of each other from what they have both built up about each other in their heads. They struggle to give each other what they need and things don't go smoothly in vividly believable ways. They are both unabashedly kinky, but that it isn't a cure or a reaction, but still a complication as they try to figure out if they can fit into each other's lives. I wish there had been just a little more grovel at the end, but the reactions were completely within character.
Shepherd Olsen's quiet and solitary life is dramatically disrupted when a bloody and shrieking black woman runs up to his isolated cabin near Federal park lands in Northern California. He springs into action, rescuing her and making sure she gets the help she needs, even as they are separated by the intense investigation.
Not only did Claudia Cade lose her brother Miles on the mountain, she also lost her way. She thought getting back to her job and her home in NYC would help but she can't quite fit back into her old life. Things that were comfortable before chafe, and fail to satisfy. She is disconnected from herself and her friends and her mind keeps going back to the mountain man, who held her and kept her safe on the worst day of her life.
Shep's life has not gone back to normal. Maybe because Claudia was gone before he could say good-bye, his mind frequently goes back to her and the life he hopes she has been able to return to. He is shocked and confused when she shows back up on the mountain needing something from him that is she is scared to articulate.
Claudia and Shep are not perfect people, they fail, struggle and nearly give up. They need help from more than just each other but they find something in each other worth working for.
Rebekah Weatherspoon continues to succeed in crafting stories that are emotionally layered and full of humor. I loved the whole cast, even when they don't love each other.
(Claudia is black woman from the Caribbean, she immigrated from Grenada as a child. I though Weatherspoon did a fantastic job in weaving this into her story.)
I received an ARC of Haven via Netgalley from the author. Haven will be released April 25th, 2017 and is available for pre-order at all the usual places.
I also reviewed the second book and actually loved that one even more, so save yourself time and buy them both at the same time and then join me in waiting for the third book.
Mary Balogh's Indiscreet (1st book in the Horsemen Trilogy) was reissued last fall and I bought it last month when it went on sale ($2.99)
Balogh was one of the first romance novelists I encountered when I started raiding my library's ebook collection in 2011. Although I usually enjoy her novels, I found myself distressed about a quarter of the way into Indiscreet:
Reading Balogh's Indiscreet & I'm not sure I can ever like hero. So entitled & self-centered. Hate his POV, just want to smack him #bkbrk
Indiscreet is the story of Catherine Winters and Rex Adams. Catherine is a widow living a quiet life in a small village. Catherine lives alone in a small cozy cottage, has a playful dog and a peaceful routine of piano lessons and visiting shut-ins. Although no one in town knows much about Catherine's past, she has up to now given everyone little cause to speculate.
Rex disturbs all that. Rex has come with his friends to visit his twin brother Claude, resident of the grand manor home in the area. He is resigned to enduring two weeks of his sister-in-law's matchmaking efforts in order to enjoy some quality time with his brother and sister. But as they parade through town his catches on the young widow when he receives Catherine's misdirected curtsy and smile (she thinks she is greeting Claude), and he sees in it invitation and flirtation. Seeing an opportunity for a convenient liason with the local widow, Rex eagerly pursues her. Catherine is confused, mortified, offended and to her consternation a little turned on by Rex attentions.
Catherine is lonely, and struggling with her aloneness in ways she hasn't had to struggle for the five years since she moved to the little village. She had thought those feelings and desires would no longer trouble her and even though she dislikes Rex's presumptions and assumptions she finds herself enjoying his kisses. But in the end, she has too much to lose and he has too little respect for her and her concerns.
But it is too late, Rex in his self-centered pursuit, has taken too little care with guarding Catherine's reputation, and rebuffs his sister-in-law's efforts at matchmaking (she is set on pairing him with her younger sister) with little grace. He fails to realize till much to late what kind of target he has placed on Catherine.
I very much hated him at this point in the novel. His frustrated and hurtful words whenever she rejects him, are sharp and prick her more deeply than he knows because he knows nothing of her history. At that point in the novel, I wasn't quite sure I could go on. I just wasn't sure how he could grow enough, or do enough to make me have like him. My usual trick of jumping to the back of them book wasn't very effective and I was about to abandon it, despite adoring Catherine, because she is just the kind of heroine I adore. Prickly, wounded, but full of pride and determination and above all fiercely independent. Thankfully Janine Ballard happened to be on twitter right then. She is a huge fan of this book and she insisted that Balogh would address all the things that made me upset. The slut-shaming, the privilege and the callousness would all matter. Thus encouraged I persevered.
@anacoqui Mostly what I love the book for is the exploration of slut-shaming and "ruin." So effective and powerful.
I have to agree with Janine. It was effective and powerful. Catherine's fall in the eyes of the community was sharp, painful and so believably rendered. But I am so thankful for Balogh's inclusion of Miss Downess, the late rector's spinster daughter, who reaches out to Catherine when no else does. Who risks her own reputation to show kindness and love to her. That was such a magnificent grace note, that balanced the extreme viciousness of Mrs. Adams's behavior. Daphne and Clay's compassion was also genuine and necessary.
Clarissa and Claude Adams were an incredibly fascinating secondary characters. Claude and Rex are twins, who used to be close and still share an emotional bond but have vastly different lives. Claude married and settled down young. He has two children and doting wife. He is content. Rex might have the title, and its vast inheritance but he has what Rex once though he wanted. Another writer might have drawn Clarissa without any redeeming features, but in Balogh's hand she is dangerously petty, blind in her privilege and position and extremely vicious, but she is also a loving wife. Her despair as she realizes how deeply she has disappointed Claude and how her behavior might cause lasting harm to her marriage was real.
"They had discovered something new about each other during the past few weeks. He had discovered that in addition to the selfishness and arrogance that he had been able to tolerate with some humor down the years, she could occasionally be vicious. She had discovered that despite his kindness and indulgent nature, he could sometimes be implacable and unforgiving. It was not a happily-ever-after in which they lived." From Chapter 15
Clarissa like Rex will come to know real regret and remorse. While Clarissa and Claude encounter this threat to their marriage 10 years in, Rex and Catherine face it at the start. Can they come to love, respect and treasure each other when all they have tying them together is duty & guilt?
Balogh goes all in on guilt. Catherine does not magically become less reticent and Rex is not magically less pushy. They grate on each other, they misunderstand each other, and above all they don't trust each other for a great deal of the novel. Yet, a delicate relationship starts to develop and somewhere along the way their desire to make it work overcomes their desire for self-preservation.
Rex's guilt and remorse are not a debilitating thing but a trans-formative force. He seeks to restore to Catherine what has been taken from her, not just by himself but by others long before. At one point in my conversation with Janine, I quipped that he better make her damn happy and in the end they are happy but not because he made her so. Instead he sets in motion actions that remind her of the the fire and life she used to want, the person she used to be and she is the one who stops being passive, and defeated. The fact that she doesn't have to do this once but several times, it part of what makes Balogh a master. Nothing was simple or straight forward. Their victories are precarious and fragile things, their love is a fragile thing. I could have smacked Rex again in that last chapter for putting Catherine through what he did but it was out of desire to set things right, instead of selfishness.
It was particularly interesting to read this novel on Easter. The beats of loss, sacrifice, despair, resurrection and restoration were very familiar and part of what keeps me reading romance.
Several times this year I have participated in knitting-related Instagram challenges. Organizers post a list of prompts and those participating post pictures or collages that respond to the prompt. Participating in these fun, joy-sharing challenges has lightened my mood, connected me to new people and let me get to know others better.
I love the romance twitter, I love hearing about people's new favorite books, or the romance that got them hooked and I think everyone could use some book-related joy right now. So I asked on twitter if anyone knew of a romance related challenge.
Anyone know of a romance challenge? I think we could do fave tropes, hero, heroine, premise...etc https://t.co/UhMVcq20vz
It seems that it has been done at least a couple of times before either on IG or as a blogging challenge but there was plenty of interest in doing a twitter one. My vision is for a multi-platform challenge. People can respond to the prompt in whatever way they would like, with a tweet, a blog/tumblr post or photo as long as they tagged and shared it on twitter. I looked around and it seems that #RombkLove hasn't had many posts, so I am going to use it for this challenge.
I would love to get it going on May 1st. That means coming up with 31 different prompts.
Here are some that have been suggested so far. I would love additional suggestions, so we have lots to choose from.
Favorite cover
Auto-buy authors
Favorite sub-genre
Favorite hero
Favorite heroine
Best grovel
Favorite line
Most romantic moment
Sexiest dialogue
Favorite character archetype
Favorite Trope
Favorite Setting/time period
First Romance
Most Read
Thought I would hate it but...
Favorite romance related non-book item (swag, bookmarks, shirts, etc.)
Update:
I've received a ton of suggestions in the comments and through Twitter, so here are some of the ones that have been shared with me:
Bicker & Banter
Meet Cute
Insert Trope here
Favorite Duke
Favorite Non-Aristocrat
Favorite Secondary Characters
Favorite Series or Family
Novel with Romantic Elements
Gateway Romance
Book you always recommend
Diverse Author
Favorite Occupation
Favorite Adaptation
Best Friendship group/posse/buddies
Romance Icons
Favorite Pet
Favorite Novella/Old-school Rom/Category etc.
Best Role reversal
First Kiss
Favorite Romland memory
Underappreciated Author
One thing that has come up a couple of times is the suggestion to open the prompts up to interpretation, so they aren't always best or favorite. I really don't want to add negativity but on reflection it is a good idea to make the prompts broad enough that people feel free to respond as they feel moved to.
I also want to make the prompts as inclusive as possible, so I'll be reworking them to make sure they are broadly applicable to all kinds of romances.
Do you have a suggestion for a prompt? Post a comment or send me a tweet.
And if you are excited about participating please check back here or on twitter before May 1st!