Linnea's comments (member since Jan 17, 2008)

Linnea's comments from the Paranormal Romance group.

One of the perks of being published is other editors and publishers give you free books, if you'll read them for a quote. Now, understand, a quote isn't automatic. I've read ARC (advanced review copies) and written the editor with thanks-but-no-thanks.

Sara Creasey's SONG OF SCARABAEUS got a squeeee! Fabulous RSF (Romantic Science Fiction) debut. It wil be out from EOS (imprint of Harper Collins) May 2010. If you like Ann Aguirre's GRIMSPACE or Julie E Czerneda's TRADE PACT books, you'll love this. The romance is a subplot but there's a sequel and I'm guessing it'll ramp up. The action is non-stop and the book has one of the best opening chapters I've read in a long time.

So heads up and FYI. As it gets closer to release date I'll do a more detailed posting.

hugs all, ~Linnea

Hi kids, just popping in after three (yep, count 'em) exhausting deadlines to extend an invite to the ROMANCING THE HOLIDAYS booksigning in the Altamonte Mall, outside Orlando FL, Nov 7th. Full details here:
http://www.cfrwa.com/?page_id=47

If you're in the area, I'd love to meet you! Thanks, ~Linnea

I hear TBR piles toppling over... ;-)


Permission to forward granted~

The Fantasy, Futuristic and Paranormal chapter of RWA is pleased to announce the final placements in the 2009 Prism Contest.

Dark Paranormal
First Place: Mona Lisa Craving by Sunny
Second Place: Immortals: The Redeeming by Jennifer Ashley
Third Place: Hotter After Midnight by Cynthia Eden

Light Paranormal
First Place: Wicked Game by Jeri Smith-Ready
Second Place:La Vida Vampire by Nancy Haddock
Third Place: The Trouble with Moonlight by Donna MacMeans


Erotica
First Place: Siren Singing by Isabo Kelly
Second Place:Carnal Desires by Crystal Jordan
Third Place: A Mermaid's Kiss by Joey W. Hill

Fantasy
First Place: The Dragon Master by Allyson James
Second Place:Dragonborn by Jade Lee
Third Place: King of Sword & Sky by C.L. Wilson

Novella
First Place: "Dark Nest" by Leanna Renee Hieber
Second Place: "Kung Fu Shoes!" by Jade Lee in These Boots were Made for Stomping

Third Place: "The Spacetime Pool" by Catherine Asaro in Analog Science Fact and Fiction magazine

Futuristic
First Place: Shades of Dark by Linnea Sinclair
Second Place:Fallen by Claire Delacroix
Third Place: Moonstruck by Susan Grant

Time Travel
First Place: Twist by Colby Hodge
Second Place:A Sexy Time of It by Cara Summers
Third Place: Madman's Dance by Jana G. Oliver

Young Adult

First Place: Sleepless by Terri Clark

Second Place:CHOSEN: A House of Night Novel by P.C. Cast

Third Place: Cave of Terror by Amber Dawn Bell

Best First Book

La Vida Vampire by Nancy Haddock

Best of the Best
The Dragon Master by Jennifer Ashley w/a Allyson James

Congratulations to all who placed, and a big thank you to all who entered, all who judged, and to the FF&P board for making it all possible.

Jennette Heikes & Theresa Kovian, FF&P Prism Contest Coordinators

From the FFP website: "The mission of FF&P is to promote excellence in romantic, futuristic, fantasy, time travel and paranormal fiction, to help writers become published in the genre, to provide current information and continuing support to the writers in the romantic, futuristic, fantasy, time travel and paranormal industry."

http://www.romance-ffp.com/

For those of you who don't know AAR, it's a well-respected romance reader site, All About Romance. http://www.likesbooks.com/home.html

They have a lot of useful references and reviews, and one of their projects is their Fave Author/Fave Book listings that they update regularly via reader polls. They have a new poll up and are begging ;-) for input.

http://www.likesbooks.com/favesbyfavesba...

**Since 2000 we have polled readers in order to create bouquets of a dozen ranked books by authors who generate interest among you. The results of these polls are presented in our Favorite Books by Favorite Authors feature, a help for readers looking for the best of an author's books to try.**

Featured authors this poll are:
Susan Andersen
Mary Balogh
Pamela Clare
Kresley Cole
Jacquie D'Alessandro
Jane Feather
Eloisa James
Angela Knight
Stephanie Laurens
Sarah McCarty
Susan Elizabeth Phillips
Karen Rose
Linnea Sinclair

Yeah, okay, I'm on the list. First time. I'm thrilled. But there are oodles of other great authors--many discussed here in this forum--and you all should go and add your faves. Poll closes June 14th, FYI.

Thanks for helping out!

H wrote: "new_user wrote: "I prefer heroes with self-respect"

.........Wait, you say that as if you actually found a romance novel with that type of hero. That's impossible."

Respectfully (pun intended) disagree. Try the Suzanne Brockmann rom suspsense/ military romance novels. She has a lot of honorable, honest male protagonists. And while not technically a romance, Lisa Shearin's Magic Lost, Trouble Found and the rest of the series has an honorable, self-resepcting, sexy as hell hero in Mychael who is a love-interest.

I'd also offer my own Hope's Folly with Admiral Philip Guthrie and The Down Home Zombie Blues with Detective Sgt Theo Petrakos.

IMHO a military or law enforcement setting/background for a character lends itself to a more honorable kind of characterization. Not that one can't write against type. ;-)

But yes, I dislike whiners and sometimes the emotionality of romance novels tends to lean too far to that side. IMHO, IMHE and your mileage may vary. ;-)

Jessa, thanks for reading my books and SFR! For more ideas, go to my links page:
http://www.linneasinclair.com/links.html...

You might also want to try the list on the left side of The Galaxy Express:
http://www.thegalaxyexpress.net/

Hope this helps! ~Linnea

Karen wrote: "When I look for something to read, I'm a romance junky. When I say romance, it means HEA, hot man (humanoid), strong heroine (humanoid), maybe some fun / thrills along the way, without regard to specific place/time. I want the happy ever after. ... As a consumer of ROMANCE books, I want to find everything thing in the ROMANCE section. The only reason I picked up Dark Lover (PNR) was because I found it in Romance, not in the Sci-Fi/Fantasy section. ..."

I love an HEA. Demand it in romance. Actually the genre 'romance' requires an HEA or it's technically not a romance.

Unfortunately, shelving decisions are made on the corporate and marketing level and not by the author. There's no where in my contract where it states where or how my books will be shelved.

Karen wrote:
If you are wondering why people haven't latched onto the Sci-Fi Romance, it's because they are probably browsing the ROMANCE section of their local bookstore.

And they can find science fiction romance on the romance section shelves! Try:
Colby Hodge
Susan Kearney
Susan Grant
Robin D Owens
Rowena Cherry
Linnea Sinclair (except in BN where they shelve me in SF and no, I have no control over that)
Patricia Waddell
Jayne Ann Krentz
Dara Joy
and others...

Karen wrote:
On a second note, I did the reading challenge that required aliens / sci-fi. One of the aspects of futuristic novels or sci-fi is just trying to keep up with the names. For some reason "Jack" won't do....it has to be a futuristic sounding name. Which slows down my reading because I'm trying to figure out how to pronounce it or I'm substituting another name.

Hmm, well the hero of HOPE'S FOLLY is Philip Guthrie. The hero of GABRIEL'S GHOST/SHADES OF DARK is Gabriel "Sully" Sullivan. Susan Grant's books have characters with names like Evie Holloway, Brit Bandar and Jasmine Boswell. Robin D Owens "Heart" series have names like Heather, Holm, Ruis. Colby Hodge has Ruben and Tess. Now, I'm not saying you can't find a book out there with a character with an name like Gr'rohgt'il... but I don't think that's what's usually done in SFR with a main character (hero/heroine).

Romance readers who like historical romances have to deal with Cedric, Padraig (which I'm told is not pronounced Pad-rag but more like Pourrah), Siobhan, Greville, Aurelia, Cyprienne (I'm getting these directly from an issue of RT reviews), Phaedra, Kaliq, Magnus, Aldwin Treynarde, Sunniva and so on.

And for the life of me I can never remember how to pronounce 'reticule' and I've been reading historicals for years.

Karen wrote:
A third note - cover art / font. I realize it's supposed to convey what type of book it is, but really. I'd rather be seen with a man-meat cover than one with planets and stars with two people in leather suits. ... If the thrust of the book is romance, then the cover should market romance...."

I know but we have little say. Marketing and the art department make the decisions. Authors are asked for input. We're just not often listened to. Trust me, the art department thinks they're marketing romance. They also try to market sex even when the book's content is mild. Sometimes the cover art is really great. Sometimes it's waaaaay off the mark.

Years ago Suzanne Brockmann hated one of her cover models so much (and felt he was so NOT the hero!) she offered a roll of free smiley face stickers to her readers with instructions to go to their local bookstore and sticker over the face of the guy on the cover.

IMHO the whole leather-clad thing comes from the popularity of urban fantasy. Cover art follows trends and that's one of them. Also keep in mind that the romance genre overall takes a lot of flack (and derision) because of its man-meat and cleavage covers. It's why "bodice ripper" be fighting words in a bar full of romance authors... ;-) ~Linnea

mlady_rebecca wrote: "Do you mean here as in this group, or here as in GR in general? I'd love something like that on a larger GR wide scale, but I have no idea how it could be implemented.

Plus, if it's more than one individual's opinion, you run into clashes over who people think are "similar" authors. Do you base it on the main character, the world-building, the level of explicit material, the writing style, ....?"

Nothing like coming back to a discussion late.. ;-)

Yes to all of the above: characterization, plot style, voice, whatever. And yes, it would reflect the opinion of the commenter in the same way reviews do. A review isn't a consensus; it's one person's opinion. So yes, recommendations may clash but that's how anything shakes out.

Librarians often use a service called NoveList (I might have the spelling wrong) and one of the columns is a 'read alike' column. ie: If you like X book by Y author, you might like B book by A author. It helps librarians make recommendations. Same with Shelf Talkers. Someone at Borders makes that decision that readers of Sherrilyn Kenyon's Dark Hunter series might also like Christine Feehan's books.

It rather works on the assumption that people who like chocolate ice cream will also like chocolate chocolate chip ice cream. Many will. Some won't. But the "you might also like" is still useful. IMHO and IMHE. ;-) ~Linnea

Thanks, Michelle! And congrats to all the RT winners! There goes our TBR piles...zoom!

Just when you thought your TBR was under control, here are the paranormal/SFF Romantic Times Reviewers' Choice Award Winners announced (and awarded) at the conference in Orlando last week:

Best Silhoutte Nocturne: VEILED TRUTH - Viva Anna
Best Historical Paranormal: PHANTOM - Lindsay Randall
Best Historical Shapeshifter Romance: THE RAVENING - Dawn Thompson
Best Futuristic/Fantasy Romance: SHADES OF DARK - Linnea Sinclair
Best Vampire Romance: BECAUSE YOUR VAMPIRE SAID SO - Michele Bardsley
Best Shapeshifter Romance: THE DRAGON MASTER - Allyson James
Best Contemporary Paranormal Romance: NOAH - Jacquelyn Frank
Best Paranormal Action-Adventure Romance: DARK MAGIC - Cheyenne McCray
Best Paranormal Fiction - UNDEAD AND UNWORTHY - MaryJanice Davidson
Best Paranormal Romantic Suspense: ACHERON - Sherrilyn Kenyon
Best Paranormal Futuristic Erotic Romance - UNDERCOVER - Lauren Dane
Best Science Fiction Novel - HALF A CROWN - Jo Walton
Best Fantasy Novel - THE HOUSE OF THE STAG - Kage Baker
Best Epic Fantasy Novel - THE HERO OF AGES - Brandon Sanderson
Best Urban Fantasy Novel - MAGIC BURNS - Ilona Andrews
Best Urban Fantasy Protagonist - Anna Strong in LEGACY - Jeanne C Stein
Best Small Press Contemporary Futuristic - CLOCKWORK HEART - Dru Pagliasotti

Okay, hit the bookstores and libraries... ;-) ~Linnea

Hi kids, I have some photos from RT in Orlando and the SFF Panel—and other RT things!—up on my Facebook fan page:
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Linnea-Sin...

for those of you who missed it! (or where there and want to relive it!). Photos include Isabo Kelly’s baby boy, Jack! And Catherine Asaro, CL Wilson, Bonnie Vanak, Stacey Klemstein and more. I’ll be adding more later this week so check back. (And if you’d like to join my Facebook fan page, I’d love that!)

If any of YOU have photos ::looks at Cheryl:: I'd love copies. ;-) ~Linnea

Hi Carmen, Welcome!
Do you read LOVELETTER magazine? It's a German romance book review magazine:

http://www.loveletter-magazin.de/

This month the mag has a feature on paranormal romance and science fiction romance. That might also add to your growing bookshelf!

They also have a nice blog: http://loveletter-magazin.blogspot.com/

(And no, I don't speak German--wish I did! I know about the magazine as they've interviewed me a few times.) ;-)

Glad to have you here and yes, you're going to find LOTS of great books to read here in this group!
~Linnea

Hey Aleh, I use Fictionwise, eBookisle (http://www.ebookisle.com/ -- if you get a 'warning' page from Google, ignore it--the site's fully legit but they evidently have some funky coding on their main page), and I visit the sites of small publishers like Samhain or Mundania Press to buy their ebooks directly. My publisher, Bantam, also has a page in their site listing where all Bantam ebooks can be found (including mine):
http://www.randomhouse.com/catalog/displ...


A listing of all Random House romance titles is here:
http://www.randomhouse.com/category/eboo...

Hope this helps! ~Linnea

Hey Kayla and Enid!
Glad to see budding writers in this group. Enid, I started out writing Trek fan fic, oh, years ago. (Yeah, that long ago.) It's a great way to learn plot and characterization. I still have some of my old stories (printed out in dot-matrix--Yikes!)

~Linnea

www.linneasinclair.com

Hi Vicci, Welcome! You and I are going to have to wrestle over Roarke (sigh sigh sigh) in the JD Robb's IN DEATH books. I adore that series. ~Linnea

PS: you can have him Monday, Wednesday and Friday...I'll take him Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday. Sunday we'll let Eve have him. ;-)

www.linneasinclair.com

Lori wrote: "Gabriel's Ghost was great. I didn't realize there was a book in between that one and Hopes Folly. Glad I read that. Now I have two more books to buy!"

So glad you liked it, Lori!
Sadly, Bantam won't put "Book 1, Book 2" on the books though I've asked. Not all houses will. If you like an author, it's always a really good idea to hit her website where you'll learn oodles more about the book you like, any upcoming and which are series or follow-ons. ;-)

I'm working on the follow-on to Hope's Folly right now, and have the possible back cover blurb up on my website in BOOKS.

~Linnea
www.linneasinclair.com

Susan K used to write Star Trek novels. Not a lot of people know that. ;-) She lives not far from me in Tampa. ~Linnea

Thanks so much, Gail, and everyone who's made kind comments on my books! It means a lot to me to know I gave you kids a few hours of fun and escape. ;-) ~Linnea
wwww.linneasinclair.com

Okay, more bad news for your TBR! Romance Writers of America released their finalists for the RITA award yesterday. I'll post the Paranormal finalists and then a link to the entire list since many of us also read other romance genres:

2009 RITA Finalists for Paranormal Romance

Dragon Wytch by Yasmine Galenorn
Penguin Group USA, Berkley (ISBN: 9780425222393)
Kate Seaver, editor

Mine to Possess by Nalini Singh
Penguin Group USA, Berkley Sensation (ISBN: 978-0-425-22016-0)
Cindy Hwang, editor

Moonstruck by Susan Grant
Harlequin Enterprises, HQN (ISBN: 0373772599)
Tara Parsons, editor

Seducing Mr. Darcy by Gwen Cready
Simon & Schuster, Pocket (ISBN: 978-1416541165)

The Darkest Night by Gena Showalter
Harlequin Enterprises, HQN (ISBN: 0373772467)
Tracy Farrell and Margo Lipschultz, editors

The Healer by Sharon Sala
Harlequin Enterprises, HQN (ISBN: 978-0-778-2544-4)
Leslie Wainger, editor

The Undead Next Door by Kerrelyn Sparks
HarperCollins Publishers, Avon Books (ISBN: 978-0-06-111845-6)
Erika Tsang, editor

Thunder Moon by Lori Handeland
St. Martin’s Press (ISBN: 0-312-94918-9)
Jennifer Enderlin, editor


http://www.rwanational.org/cs/2009_rita_...

The above URL also includes the Golden Heart (unpublished manuscript) finalists for all genres.

Happy reading! ~Linnea
www.linneasinclair.com

Lady Oz, I feel the same way. ALPHA has actually been out for a couple years but I think it was originally released in hardback. SUNRISE ALLEY is book one but you don't need to read it to get ALPHA. You can get SUNRISE ALLEY for FREE on Baen's site (I have the download and plan to read it when I'm out of deadline and the usual assorted crises).

new_user, oh, there's nookie in ALPHA. But it's not in the (often) heavily descriptive-type scenes found in romance novels. My own books are actually rather nookie-light compared to the Laurel K Hamilton, Angela Knight etc stuff. I fade to black more or as some reviewers have noted, concentrate on character's FEELINGS not BODY PARTS (not that there's anything wrong with body parts... ;-) ...it's just my style of writing and what I feel write best: feelings.) So I had no problems with ALPHA not getting into all the body part descriptions.