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Specific IR Book Talk
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Those Who Have Read Dmitry's Closet
Nevermind. I am giving up. He just "smiled at her like a newborn seeing its mother for the first time".I don't have the literary stomach to take this lol.
LOL I remember Royal being described as small and then long (something like that)..
He is older more experienced and she is young and inexperienced. From the beginning they are kind of playful towards each other although Dmitry tries to play it off that he is interested in her. They have a very easy going relationship so maybe that is why it comes off that way. It is a REALLY good book imo. I think you should read it.
Savannah wrote: "Nevermind. I am giving up. He just "smiled at her like a newborn seeing its mother for the first time".I don't have the literary stomach to take this lol."
LMFAO...Savannah you are too much.
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The FountainPenDiva, Old school geek chick and lover of teddy bears
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The book is good, save for Royal (who worked every nerve but my last one, LOL). Dmitry is a very complex character and his actions make you rethink of what constitutes as hero. I loved the fact that Ms. Nelson didn't sugarcoat the less than savory aspects of his life.
TheFountainPenDiva wrote: "The book is good, save for Royal (who worked every nerve but my last one, LOL). Dmitry is a very complex character and his actions make you rethink of what constitutes as hero. I loved the fact t..."It's definitely worth finishing, even though Royal doesn't improve much throughout the series. She picks up a little badassness as the books progress. It's worth it just for Dmitry and Anatoly.
I like Dmitry...or at least I think I do. But the emotions are being written so choppy and the adjectives/descriptions so cheesy or just plain redundant its throwing me off big time.Right now Royal has suddenly gone all sweet when she's been nothing but a "Royal" bitch for two outta three chapters. They have professed love based on....heck, I have no idea. The book just started snd either she's been sniping at him or he's been blowing into town dropping truck loads of ice on her lol. So I guess I get why SHE might love HIM but that's about it.
He has hired muscled that rushes in ehispering in his ear before necessitating abrupt exits on his part, he's filthy rich.....yet she suspects nothing. lol
I'ma try to keep going because its being so highly recommended.
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Tank- clearly you already know how I am.lolRen, ya I've been asduming its supposed to be playful banter. I just dob't think this writer us good at it I guess lol.
Thanks Lady Danielle! I take on guilt pretty easily so I probably needed to hear that! I like romantic fantasy, it's just the writing.....
I need to get off this phone because my phone typos are killin me!
Savannah wrote: "Tank- clearly you already know how I am.lolRen, ya I've been asduming its supposed to be playful banter. I just dob't think this writer us good at it I guess lol."
Lol haha....Lady Danielle is right though not everyone will like the same author. I honestly feel that way about some of the popular IR authors out there
For instance, I can't understand why The President's Girlfriend has such high ratings. The writing was just horrible in my opinion but others loved it, or why Sienna Mynx is so popular....I can't ever get through her books.
Just preference I guess. Lol
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The FountainPenDiva, Old school geek chick and lover of teddy bears
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I agree with the escapist fantasy element, but it just failed when one of the characters seems stuck on stupid. There's innocence, then there's "the lights are on but no one's home". It was just kinda hard to fathom Royal's never heard of the Russian mafia. I mean, didn't she even go to the movies and see Eastern Promises, LOL? I kept thinking to myself doesn't the girl have access to the net? Memphis might be in the south, but they're not that backward. Dmitry explains the tattoos in detail and still Royal is clueless.
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The FountainPenDiva, Old school geek chick and lover of teddy bears
(last edited Jun 06, 2013 05:09PM)
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She was college-educated. She also had a painful past with men. The fact that she never suspected anything odd about Dmitry screamed fail. The guy didn't have a regular job and yet was rolling around in cash. There were plenty of warning signs but Royal just didn't seem to connect the dots. Amazing her fellow co-workers did (though one of them can be explained, LOL).
No, it was not innocence. Royal was in denial. No one ever took care of her like Dmitry. Even when Renee mentioned it to her she made excuses. I just believe she never wanted to face the facts of what he did or his lifestyle, because she cared for him and he treated her like no one else before.In some sense, it is realistic because there are many people who live in denial about the people they love, even when the truth is staring them in the face.
I think towards the end of the book she even admits as much. She didn't want to face the truth.
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Danielle The Book Huntress , Sees Love in All Colors
(last edited Jun 06, 2013 05:26PM)
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For what it's worth, I don't identify with Royal that much, but definitely in that I like to believe the best of people. I can say that I was very naive about people when I got into college and learned the hard way how traitorous and mean people can be in my experiences in professional school and when I entered the working world as a twenty-something year old.
I don't know, ladies. I think at some point, even in fiction, it has to become about plausible deniability. Forget RUSSIAN mafia-a woman needs to recognize a mob boss when she see's one in action. lol I mean I don't care if its Italian, Russian or Irish- the behavior has some hardcore similarities. I don't care if its the Louisiana swamp- she should recognize a high ranking crime boss when she see's one. I can understand denial to an extent. But zero suspicion? That's a little insulting to me as a reader. I can see her thinking "Its almost as if he's...no...no, that can't be right." or something along those lines. But to not even have the thought enter her mind makes her, as a character, less root-worthy. Less worthy of my respect as a reader. Innocence I can buy, but at what point does innocent equal just plain clueless? lol Unless she's lived in the nunnery with no access to books, tv or a newspaper, she's pretty much dumb in this situation.That's not even my real problem with this book. Honestly its the dialog. If I can't hear the conversation in my head while its going down, or if they are saying things that I cannot even remotely imagine two people saying to each other-the book is a miss for me. These two never seem to establish any type of verbal rhythm or report the early stages. That's so crucial. I gotta be able to fall in love right along with the couple and with this story, they are just too all over the place verbally for me to get there. I LOVE the idea of a Russian accent, but she's not even being consistent with the execution of it. If he's going to drop his participles and forget his conjunctions, then BE CONSISTENT ABOUT IT! Don't just throw in some "Da's" and "Nyets"along with a "Mother Russia" and expect me to get into it. That's why writing is time consuming and painstaking. There is actual research involved, or at least there should be!
I LOVE the concept of the story. But in this case, just for me maybe, it fails in the execution. That happens a lot, a story that I start reading because I love the idea presented in the synopsis. I have no problem with the idea of a woman falling in love with a mobster. Its fiction and I'm honest enough to say that a part of me likes the idea of the big, strong alpha who breaks the law but loves the lady beyond all measure. But sometimes authors just don't deliver what I consider a quality product. On the flip side, I've had books that were extremely well written-but the story just plain sucked.LOL Like, I loved the person's writing style, delivery, flow, talent for dialog and seting a good pace...but their content was lacking. In this case it was just A instead of B.
I loved the story over all but the description of Royal was a little choppy and unbelievable/unrealistic at times, conversation did get a little all over the place at times. But my biggest issue was the fact that both the Mob Boss series and the Medelov series the Black woman had long flowing hair... Face reality !!! not all of us black women have long flowing black hair !,,,
This is just a little side note... Deviating a bit but it hit a nerve with me because as dark as I am several hairdressers have made the assumption that I was wearing a weave which would be fine if I did but I don't . And I have been asked numerous times what "number" hair do I wear. So for those who aren't familiar with the wide spectrum of Black females and their hair textures ....Way off !!!!! Most of us don't have long flowing black hair and when we do its questioned...like I am constantly... It would be nice if they show that diversity in their writing about black women and the hair factor it would make the stories a little more believable.... Most of theses interracial stories describe black women with long flowing hair!!!
Sonya wrote: "This is just a little side note... Deviating a bit but it hit a nerve with me because as dark as I am several hairdressers have made the assumption that I was wearing a weave which would be fine if..."I too normally have a lot of hair (recently lost my mind and thought I needed a bob) but think the flowing hair thing in our novels is it's own kind of a secret fantasy...though we don't like to talk about it in mixed company. It would be realistic if they heroine proudly rocks weave from time to time. I recently read a book featuring a woman with really short hair and that was a nice change too.
Personally, that is the one thing of the things I hate about interracial romances featuring a black woman.Put ten black woman in a room and how many have them will have naturally "long flowing hair" and a eye color that is not dark brown?
I think they need to be a little bit more realistic there. In my opinion, they make it seem like a like white man will only go for a black woman who has long flowing hair and hazel eyes( or geen, grey, and very light brown.)
They need to bring in the novels with women that have weave, short natural hair(please not the curly stuff), or relaxed hair. There needs to be more variation.
Actually, in Pepper Pace's novel Juicy the heroine didn't have flowing long hair and went through a phase where she hated her hair because it wasn't like her mother's. I said finally!!
for some reason the males in these types of books are better written then the females most of the times. My major pet peeve is that the female never suspects that the man is involved in organized crime, regardless of the arm bodyguards and suspect lifestyle. I thinks as writers and readers we put too much emphasizes on skin tone and hair texture, neither of which should drive story plot unless it is a book dealing with race. Stating a female has curly or straight styled hair is enough for me, I do not need to know if she flat irons it everyday or has it relaxed.
Honestly the only thing that bothers me about the hair is that they never say its a weave. For most modern women weave is nothing but an accessory like makeup or earrings. Honestly, if we are spinning tales about interracial relationships, lets keep some details relatable. My husband got a crash course when we got together lmao! And as you are saying it's simply not true that all of us have long flowing locks. At least not naturally and there is nothing wrong with that. It would be nice is some point in all this storytelling for someone to mention the fact that they have extensions. Not to mention all the times that they go around swimming or taking sex showers and letting their hair air dry. Get. Real. All of this, along with the constant "golden eyes" simply reinforces the misconception that for a white man to be attracted to a black woman she basically has to look like just a very tan white chick. Bull. Ish. I wear extensions when I want some versatility without harming my own hair. Its so not a big deal, so please lets move on Black America. My skin is not flawless without a dime sized dollop of primer and a good foundation and my eyes are a perfectly lovely shade if dark brown.
Sonya- u proved your own point lol. Like, for me I have a set of quadruplets...2 boys/2 girls. It bugs the very crap out of me whrn strangers walk up to us asking questions assuming we did IVF. We didn't. But I have to realize that quads without invitro are rare. so the assumption is understandable. I get tired of the question (like you) and there is NOTHING wrong with conceiving via ivf (like wearing weave lol), but its an understandable one.
Savannah wrote: "Honestly the only thing that bothers me about the hair is that they never say its a weave. For most modern women weave is nothing but an accessory like makeup or earrings. Honestly, if we are spinn..."I completely agree. A may not have liked the president's Girlfriend but I liked that the heroine in that book had braids. I just don't get it and the long flowing hair and color eyes make it seem that a black woman has to look as close to white as possible for a white man to be attracted to her. Ah....who wants to read that?
Since we were talking about Dmitry's Closet Renee's and Antoly's story was weird because I think in Dmitry's Closet she had an afro? Then in book 3 Anatoly Medlov she didn't, but either way it was nice to see she had rollers in her air and a cap on her head haha. Anyway, she was the only one of the 3 black girls in the book who didn't have long flowing hair.
RE: Dmitry's Closet. I couldn't get past 11% on my kindle of this book. For me, there were grammar and usage issues loomed too large for me to even get a sense of plot & character. re: Hair. I don't know if it is just the books I pick, but hair descriptions are studiously avoided. Skin & eye, otoh, are described with gusto.
Actually one of the more interesting mentions of black women's hair in a book for me has come from a white male author. Ben Aaronovitch who writes the Peter Grant Urban Fantasy series. In a couple of his books he lightly, yet very astutely, touches on the politics of black women's hair in such a way that he was totally serving up some realness.
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The FountainPenDiva, Old school geek chick and lover of teddy bears
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I think one way to rectify the skin tone/hair issue is for we IR readers and writers to sit down and create a brand new vocabulary to better describe color and texture that isn't predicated on food descriptions (i.e. honey, caramel, chocolate, etc.). We black women wear our hair in so many interesting ways (to the extent that people of other races often try to copy our styles--remember Bo Derek). We should be celebrating that. One reason I absolutely LOVE these books:
. The covers are amazing and both heroines have natural styles.
Let's face it ladies, some of this is just lazy writing. The rest is a lack of vocabulary if not straight lack of talent. There. I said it. It needed to be said. Lol I am NOT talking about Miss Nelson, perse. Nothing worse than redundancy and you see a lot if it in this genre, unfortunately.
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Danielle The Book Huntress , Sees Love in All Colors
(last edited Jun 07, 2013 03:42PM)
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@ Tina, I agree there were lots of editing issues, but I still loved it despite that.
I saw this book on Amazon and it sounds interesting but is it worth buying? If not, then I will keep my 6 bucks. lol
Felicia wrote: "I saw this book on Amazon and it sounds interesting but is it worth buying? If not, then I will keep my 6 bucks. lol"Its not worth $6.00, that's for dang sure. But then, that's just one opinion lol.
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The FountainPenDiva, Old school geek chick and lover of teddy bears
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Savannah wrote: "Let's face it ladies, some of this is just lazy writing. The rest is a lack of vocabulary if not straight lack of talent. There. I said it. It needed to be said. Lol I am NOT talking about Miss N..."
Sadly I have to second this opinion. Maybe not on the lack of talent but certainly on the redundancy aspect.
Let's be honest--our genre is growing STALE. I've said this before and I'll keep right on saying it. I criticize out of love. I want to see more IR's, especially featuring black women paired with men of varying ethnicities. I want our best and brightest on an equal footing with mainstream romance because we have writers who can bring it and consistently do so. Granted it's unfair, but you all know as well as I do that the old saying about black folks having to be twice as good to get half the credit still holds true, and we've all seen the FAIL from review sites like Dear Author who look for any excuse in the book (no pun intended) to disparage and/or ignore this genre. We've got to stop making excuses for bad plots, blatant grammar/spelling abuse and the other horrors that get in the way of a great story. No, we'll never be perfect, but one can get pretty damn close.
There's plenty of blame to be spread equally--from readers who won't venture outside their comfort zones to writers who won't do the same. It's cyclical since writers need readers. However, all is not lost because we're still relatively a young genre so we have a lot more freedom to experiment. It's time we used it, time that readers and writers took those big risks. As a reader, I'll allways support this genre, but when it starts to feel as if I'm being taken advantage of because I love it so much, it really hurts.
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I think it was worth what I paid for it. If you're not sure, then you can get someone to loan it to you on Kindle.
Lady Danielle aka The Book Huntress wrote: "Felicia wrote: "I saw this book on Amazon and it sounds interesting but is it worth buying? If not, then I will keep my 6 bucks. lol"I think it was worth what I paid for it. If you're not sure, t..."
I agree, I think it is worth it. I have the entire series and I don't regret it, but we all have different taste and opinions so I think you should read it for yourself and decide. Try getting it on loan. I would lend it to you but I already loaned it.
TheFountainPenDiva wrote: Let's be honest--our genre is growing STALE. I've said this before and I'll keep right on saying it. I criticize out of love. I want to see more IR's, especially featuring black women paired with men of varying ethnicities. I want our best and brightest on an equal footing with mainstream romance because we have writers who can bring it and consistently do so. I could hug you for this. I really could. TOTALLY agree. And tahts what scares me because I've been reading IR's off and on for about three years and I'm worried about the quality that's being cranked out in such a short time span. Storylines have gotten STALE in such a short time. Its completely formulaic:
Take 1 part Alpha male
3/4 cups caramel/mocha/chocolate skinned heroine
Add 1 FULL cup rippling muscles
2 tbs jealous and possessive tendancies
Bring to a boil over a RAGING heat with as much sex as possible.
Savannah wrote: "Take 1 part Alpha male3/4 cups caramel/mocha/chocolate skinned heroine
Add 1 FULL cup rippling muscles
2 tbs jealous and possessive tendancies
Bring to a boil over a RAGING heat with as much sex as possible. "
Except for the skin color part the same could be said for all romance novels not just the IR subgenre. Romance is pretty formulaic and for the most part it doesn't bother me because it's pure escapism for me. I mean after Shades Of Grey it would be impossible to track the amount of billionaire porn that's been offered. It can be excessive but it doesn't stop me from devouring and recommending the best of the bunch. The same goes for IR books.
Paganalexandria wrote:Except for the skin color part the same could be said for all romance novels not just the IR subgenre. Romance is pretty formulaic and for the most part it doesn't bother me because it's pure escapism for me.
I agree to an extent. Yes, absolutely most romantic fiction features strong male leads. But I've read so, so many mainstream books where the guy was the sensitive one, the geeky one, the broke one (literally and figuratively) the one who was damaged to the point where HE lacked the confidence in himself to accept the love of a good woman. Mainstream has way more poor romantic heroes than IR books seem to. I'm not even sure I've read one yet where the male lead was poor. Mainstream also has a wider variety of body types for the men. Books where the guy was lanky, rangy or even downright thin and a multitude of other builds that were not rippling muscles. Not saying they aren't out there in IR. Just talking about what I've read in the last 3 years.
I still feel like this genre relies the formula more to draw readers in. Maybe its just the fact that I've had an opportunity to grow bored with mainstream romantic fiction and actively seek out more diversity within the genre. I'm relatively new to IR. I have to say that it seems OVERWHELMINGLY formulaic. The guys are usually rich alpha's. and even their version of alpha is far more alpha than much of the mainstream stuff I've read. LOL
I just agree with FountainPenDiva...its getting stale. Hell I love pizza and generally subscribe to the "any pizza is good pizza" theology lol. Doesn't mean I don't crave something else now and then.
I hate that most IR's are novellas or very short reads. When I first started reading IR novels I wondered if someone told the authors that readers wanted to only read erotic novels.All sex and little to no substance, then I'm left wondering when they fell in love and why!
TheFountainPenDiva wrote: "Let's be honest--our genre is growing STALE. I've said this before and I'll keep right on saying it. I criticize out of love. I want to see more IR's, especially featuring black women paired with men of varying ethnicities. I want our best and brightest on an..."So much valuable information here!! I sometimes wonder if writers read these threads. It would sure help 'em out. Its helping know what to avoid writing in the IR genre.
Last month I read "The Flavor of Love" by Shiree McCarver, excellent BW/AM romance -loved the twist of fate aspect too. She has several other books and I plan to read more of her work in the future.
Savannah wrote: "Paganalexandria wrote:I agree to an extent. Yes, absolutely most romantic fiction features strong male leads. But I've read so, so many mainstream books where the guy was the sensitive one, the geeky one, the broke one (literally and figuratively) the one who was damaged to the point where HE lacked the confidence in himself to accept the love of a good woman. Mainstream has way more poor romantic heroes than IR books seem to. I'm not even sure I've read one yet where the male lead was poor. Mainstream also has a wider variety of body types for the men. Books where the guy was lanky, rangy or even downright thin and a multitude of other builds that were not rippling muscles. Not saying they aren't out there in IR. Just talking about what I've read in the last 3 years."
Savanah, I never noticed the difference because if my hero isn't alpha in any romance genre it automaticly goes to the "meh" pile. I mean my favorite book boyfriend of all time is Jericho Barrons from Karen Marie Monings Fever series
. I guess if I were looking for a beta lead it would be hard to find in the IR genre. I just finished a really good IR book this morning with a different type of hero you might also enjoy
. It fits nicely in the new adult genre and haven't seen a lot of IR exploring those themes yet.
What the Samuel Heck is New Adult? I keep hearing about that genre.
L'Poni wrote: "What the Samuel Heck is New Adult? I keep hearing about that genre."It's that age between 18 and early twenties that features all the angst and drama those relationships feature. The books usually feature a lot of sex unlike Young Adult. Some of the mainstream breakouts in the genre are
Paganalexandria wrote: "L'Poni wrote: "What the Samuel Heck is New Adult? I keep hearing about that genre."It's that age between 18 and early twenties that features all the angst and drama those relationships feature. T..."
Ohhhhhhhhhh I see. I've heard of Beautiful Disaster. It looked angsty judging by the cover art. I guess the genre kinda makes sense, but it looks like the genre has a lot of sad stories.
L'Poni wrote: "Paganalexandria wrote: "L'Poni wrote: "Ohhhhhhhhhh I see. I've heard of Beautiful Disaster. It looked angsty judging by the cover art. I guess the genre kinda makes sense, but it looks like the genre has a lot of sad stories. "
Yeah, one of the characters always seem to be recovering from some kind of past abuse. That gets on my nerves a little because maybe due to my non-nurturing instincts "I ain't got time for that".
Paganalexandria wrote: "L'Poni wrote: "Paganalexandria wrote: "L'Poni wrote: "Ohhhhhhhhhh I see. I've heard of Beautiful Disaster. It looked angsty judging by the cover art. I guess the genre kinda makes sense, but it loo..."Recovering? Hmmmmm....I wonder if those books ever show the character going through whatever is happening to them, all-the-while expanding and giving history to all the characters instead of just the main character? That's what I do in a lot of flash stories I write to make everyone rounded. I'm not too sure if most novels follow that route. Hmmmm...it doesn't matter for me. I don't read novels anyway.
Paganalexandria- thanks for the recommendation. added it to my list.
Paganalexandria wrote: "Savannah wrote: "Take 1 part Alpha male3/4 cups caramel/mocha/chocolate skinned heroine
Add 1 FULL cup rippling muscles
2 tbs jealous and possessive tendancies
Bring to a boil over a RAGING heat w...
...Except for the skin color part the same could be said for all romance novels not just the IR subgenre. "
This is so true. The thing with mainstream is that there is enough variety that you can sometimes weed out the formula. IR is such a compacted sub-genre that is seems everything gets distilled. And it doesn't help that many of the writers these days in IR seem to only be putting out product that, on average, is 100 pages or less.
So not only do we get the formula, it is compressed in so few pages. And added to that, so many of those pages are given over to 'pull-your-hair' sex that it leaves little room for good storytelling.
In previous years, by now I would have read and reviewed probably a good 20 IR romances. Not so this year. I'll be lucky to get to 10.
This is probably why I give a huge shout out to Violette Dubrinsky's
whenever it comes up in conversation. It was full length (@500 pages), well written, well edited, she built a paranormal world with rules, she told a main love story that had depth, and she had a bunch of supporting characters who acted independently of the main characters. The story had a beginning, middle and end with a climactic scene at the end that finished out the story and set up logical sequels. It is a shame that somehow, nowadays, that feels like the exception not the norm.
Tina wrote: "It is a shame that somehow, nowadays, that feels like the exception not the norm."Interesting! Don't worry, I plan on doing something to spice up the genre....right after I get my books under control because. More writers should listen to what people want and use their inner sense to flush out good stories. They should ask themselves: does the story feel empty? Is everything making sense?
Fans of Interracial Romance
Books mentioned in this topic
Dragon Bound (other topics)Taken By Moonlight (other topics)
Beautiful Disaster (other topics)
On Dublin Street (other topics)
Darkfever (other topics)
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She has been described as both short and long. Humble and unaware of her appeal but she us SO disrectpectful to him as her employer and alternates between behaving like she knows he's sprung over her and she's clueless that he even likes her. I would get it if I wasn't being told that she is unaware if his attraction to her....she's grateful for the job but talking to him like she's doing HIM the favor???
I just need to know if this is me being picky lol.