Jane Litte's Blog, page 947

First Page: The Last Wish

Welcome to First Page Saturday. Individual authors anonymously send a first page read and critiqued by the Dear Author community of authors, readers and industry others. Anyone is welcome to comment. You may comment anonymously. You can submit your own First Page using this form.

It was raining hard on the dreadful night when Daniel O’ Conell PFC is shot in the upper arm, he remembered that most of all. Not the pain or smell of death all around him, just the rain, and a rain so hard it bounced...

GUEST REVIEW: Power Play by Charlotte Stein

The following is a guest review from dri who you can find athttp://aquandrian.livejournal.com

I started pilfering Mills & Boons at the age of nine from a housemate who tactfully pretended not to notice, read every romance novel I could lay my hands on from SuperRomances to Victoria Holt to Barbara Cartland to Catch-22 (there was a sex scene in that, wasn’t there? that was enough!) and came back to the world of romance some twenty or so years later. Since then, I read almost exclusively Regency...

REVIEW: A Night Like This by Julia Quinn

Dear Ms. Quinn—

It’s taken me way too long to write up my review of your latest Regency romance A Night Like This. I finished it weeks ago and found it wanting but couldn’t figure out what exactly it wanted. So, I went back and read several older books of yours I think are grand. I revisited a few of the Bridgertons and caught up with Miss Miranda Cheever and her wonderfully dry diaries. What those books have that this one doesn’t is underpinning. I don’t mean heft—your books are light and tha...

Friday Film Review: Father of the Bride (1950)

[image error]Father of the Bride (1950)

Genre: Comedy

Grade: B

I’ll be up front and admit that I prefer the original of this to the remake. The 1991 version isn’t bad and I actually think that it was updated very nicely but the original is what I saw first years ago and it’s hard to beat Spencer Tracy and Elizabeth Taylor in their prime. This version was released days after Taylor’s first marriage – for which MGM had paid all the expenses – and that hoopla plus the lovely performances the cast delivered have...

REVIEW: Dedication by Janet Mullany

Dear Ms. Mullany,

As a big fan ofseveralof yourhistoricalromances, I jumped at the chance to read your first book, recently revised and released as a “sexier, longer” version. I’m a big fan of both “sexier” and “longer” (get your minds out of the gutter, readers, I mean that I like longerbooks).

[image error]Adam Ashworth and Fabienne Craigmont meet when he storms into the home of his ward Luke one morning, intent on getting to the bottom of rumors that the younger man is keeping a mistress right in his hom...

REVIEW: The Return of Jonah Gray by Heather Cochran

Dear Ms. Cochran,

One of our readers, Emily, recommended “The Return of Jonah Gray” to me when I’d reviewed another book which features an Internal Revenue Service heroine. After reading the first two chapters of your book at Amazon, I was hooked on the heroine and her sense of humor (must just be the IRS as a whole that doesn’t have one). After reading the whole book, I’m hooked on Sasha Gardner and, surprisingly for a hero who doesn’t actually show up in person until near the end of the book...

Thursday Midday Links: 50 Shades plans on destroying every good thing; Amazon bids for .book; Amazon deal with State Dept. under scrutiny

Last week at BEA I spoke with a number of publishing people about 50 Shades. I was beginning to feel sanguine about the book. A book that made women feel more comfortable about their sexuality was a good thing. A book that got people reading was a good thing. The publishing path of 50 Shades was instructive and enlightening. But my equanimity with the book was utterly destroyed when I read this earlier this week:

Louisa May Anonymous’s 50 SHADES OF LOUISA MAY, imagining the secret sex life of...

REVIEW: Lust in the Library by Amelia Fayer

Dear Ms. Fayer:

I am not certain what the intended audience for this two story collection is. I doubt that it is romance readers as there is no romance. I don’t know that it is for erotica readers because there is nothing in it that involves character development or discovery through the sexual acts. My categorization would be boring stroke fiction.

[image error]“Necking in Nonfiction” features a pairing between Sara and William Hammond, a visiting scholar from Oxford.

The initial scene has Sara being told t...

REVIEW: Bitterblue by Kristin Cashore

Dear Ms. Cashore,

While I really liked your debut YA fantasy, Graceling, I was less keen on your second novel, Fire. Graceling had a strong heroine, Lady Katsa, who, along with the man she grew to love, sought to rescue a child princess from an evil king, guarding her independence the whole way, but Lady Fire,the heroine of Fire was less engaging.

[image error]Fire had a background and circumstances that should have made her more compelling than Katsa, but she was goalless and confused about what she wanted...

Dear Author’s New Review Submission Page

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From http://www.flickr.com/photos/puuikibe...

To handle the influx of requests from individual authors (not publishers), we’ve developed a handy form for authors to use to submit their books. Form here. Currently and in the past, I’ve had authors email me and I’ve used my best judgment in turning away books or forwarding them on. I don’t believe that was the best way to get the books in front of the right reviewer. Using this form allows all the reviewers to review the requests and respond ac...