Jane Litte's Blog, page 963

Friday Film Review: Jab We Met (When We Met)

Jab We Met (When We Met) (2007)

Genre: Romantic Comedy

Grade: B

“Changing fortunes await wealthy but dejected industrialist Aditya (Shahid Kapoor) when he meets a spirited chatterbox named Geet (Kareena Kapoor) on a train in this breezy romantic comedy from Bollywood director Imtiaz Ali. Nursing a broken heart, Aditya ends up traveling with the impulsive Geet, who’s on her way to elope with her secret beau. But fate has other plans, and soon Geet and Aditya are thrust together again … perhaps fo...

REVIEW: Knight by Kristen Ashley

Dear Ms. Ashley:

I was on Twitter a few days ago, and author Carly Phillips mentioned Knight by Kristen Ashley as being “50 Shades-ish”. While 50 Shades did not work for me, I adored Bared to You by Sylvia Day, and I’m a sucker for a serious alpha-hole, so I decided to buy the book.

Anya Gage is a twenty-seven year old woman working multiple jobs while studying at beauty school. One day, she’ll open the best spa in Denver, but for now, she’s got very little to her name. One of Anya’s closest fr...

Interview with Mary Balogh (and Giveaway)

This month we are fortunate to have the latest release of Mary Balogh “The Proposal” featuring Gwen’s story. Gwendoline, Lady Muir, has been a long time denizen of Balogh novels and there has been a great deal of speculation about who she would end up with and whether she would even get her own story. Ms. Balogh launched a brand new quartet of books beginning with Gwen’s romance with Hugo, Lord Trentham.

Drop a note in the comments if you’d like a copy of The Proposal. Random House is sponsori...

REVIEW: Unraveling by Elizabeth Norris

Dear Ms. Norris,

I admit I went into your debut novel not knowing much about it. I knew it was a YA. I had an idea about the basic set-up: a girl dies in a car accident and is brought back to life by a classmate. This somehow leads into a race against the clock to save the world which is about to be destroyed. Even the backcover blurb left me with more questions than answers. All these things piqued my interest enough to give your novel a try. It’s a decision I don’t regret.

It’s the last days...

REVIEW: The Governess Affair by Courtney Milan

Dear Ms. Milan:

It’s difficult to give a grade to each one of your books because your prose is so fine that my complaints, if I have any, always sound so mean (as in small not cruel).

There are some brilliant things in this book, so brilliant that I needed more time spent with each character and the lack of time I got to spend with each character made me feel as if I hadn’t been given the entire story. Whereas Unlocked felt fully contained, this book (maybe because of the elongated epilogue) fe...

Wednesday Midday Links: S&S gains offset by legal costs; Amanda Hocking is doing really well in traditional publishing; Kindle Fire refurb

The best deal today is $139 for a Refurbished Kindle Fire. This is sold by Amazon and comes with the same customer service.

Onto the News:

CBS Corporation Reports Record First Quarter 2012 Results – MarketWatch – “Publishing (Simon & Schuster) Publishing revenues for the first quarter of 2012 increased 14% to $176 million from $155 million for the same prior-year period, reflecting strong growth in the sales of more profitable digital content as well as higher print book sales. Sales of digital...

Debut Print Book: Wicked as They Come by Delilah S. Dawson

I’ve had some concerns by readers who are primarily print readers that the coverage at Dear Author has been too focused on ebooks. When I asked the readers what they were interested in seeing, they responded that they would like to know more about print debut authors. We developed a little questionnaire and every Wednesday at 10:00 AM CST (as long as we have content) we’ll post the questionnaire answers along with links to the author’s site and a buy link to her book. I hope this helps people...

REVIEW: Say It With Diamonds by Lucy King

Dear Ms. King:

I felt like this book started out with the heroine as a thief and the hero as a good guy and then someone told you to SEX it up and all the backstory and character got chopped for paragraph upon paragraph of mental lusting. There was so much mental lusting, in such an intense and melodramatic tone, that it was surprising to me that either the heroine or the hero could function like regular people. The heroine, in particular, with her description of her insta lust upon seeing Wi...

Tuesday Midday Links: DPLA Moves Forward; 3M Launches Digital Lending Platform (Plus lots of deals)

News

At West Coast Meeting, Digital Public Library of America Begins to Take Shape – “The [DPLA] steering committee is charting a path that would deliver something more like a distributed network of digital library collections, rather than a single centralized repository. DPLA would start by aggregating descriptive metadata about existing collections that would be slowly built up around the country. DPLA would provide a central place for search and discovery and a set of tools and APIs that wo...

REVIEW: The Book of Blood and Shadow by Robin Wasserman

Dear Ms. Wasserman,

I’m a sucker for an evocative title, even more so than I am for a striking cover. And for me, you don’t get more evocative than The Book of Blood and Shadow. It caught my eye immediately on NetGalley. On top of that, the premise sounded different. That’s not something you can say often in the young adult genre these days. Having finished the book, I agree with my initial impression — it is a different book. At the same time though, I’m also forced to concede that it’s also...