I sold a book!

I sold one of my historical romance manuscripts! I've decided to publish under a pen name, so you can read all about my upcoming book (release date still TBD) at my "Susanna Fraser" blog:

Books!

I've been trying to read more for fun lately, and a bit less for research or because I feel like I should read certain books. I recommend it. It's fun.

In honor of the upcoming baseball season, I got the Maple Street Press 2010 Mariners Annual, a series of articles for the diehard Mariners fan, mostly written by leading lights of the M's blogosphere. Lots of good stuff for the baseball geek, but I think my favorite piece was Derek Zumsteg's article about Ichiro, "The Man Who Will Not Slow Down." (Basically, Ichiro is 36, but he doesn't play like it.) Among other things, he compares Ichiro's stats to those of 1909's leading players, and said that if Ichiro had played in the dead ball era, he and Ty Cobb "would have been rivals until the point Cobb's racist head exploded with frustration." I like that image.

Proof By Seduction (Courtney Milan, 2010) is an extremely promising debut historical romance. It's not a perfect book, but it's fun and well-written, and between it and Rose Lerner's In For a Penny, I'm feeling more optimistic about the state of the historical romance than I have in a long time. I don't like its cover, not at all. I do, however, enjoy Milan's sense of humor about it. For the record, I'm not against sexy covers, I just like them tasteful enough that I don't have to worry about how I'd explain them to my daughter or feel self-conscious about having them in my blog sidebar. I'd be totally happy, f'rex, if/when I'm published, to have a cover something Jacqueline Carey's upcoming release.

Just this evening I finished A Fountain Filled With Blood (Julia Spencer-Fleming, 2004), second in the mystery series featuring Episcopal priest Clare Ferguson and small-town police chief Russ Van Alstyne. This outing takes place about six months after the first book and shows our characters continuing to fight their feelings for each other while battling a possible string of hate crimes.

Books catch-up

I've had a bit more time to read lately, but not so much to blog about it. The new job is keeping me busy, and why was I ever crazy enough to think I'd have MORE time once my kid was in kindergarten rather than daycare? So, here's a brief catch-up.

Break Into Fiction (Mary Buckham and Dianna Love, 2009) uses worksheets and examples from popular movies to show writers how to apply the Hero's Journey structure to plotting their own work. A timely read for me, since plotting is one of my weak points. My last manuscript went through three full drafts--not rewrites, but full drafts--because it took me so long to figure out what the plot actually was. And I like that it uses the Hero's Journey, which feels more organic and flexible to me that other approaches I've seen, such as Goal-Motivation-Conflict. (Full disclosure: Mary Buckham is a member of my local RWA chapter.)

The House of Hope of Fear (Audrey Young, 2009) chronicles the experience of a young medical resident at Seattle's Harborview Medical Center, where I worked in a non-patient care role 2007-09. This should be required reading for anyone opposed to health care reform, since it shows what a mess the current system is. (I try not to be political on this blog, but sometimes I just can't help it.)

In the Bleak Midwinter (Julia Spencer-Fleming, 2002) is the first in a mystery series set in upstate New York and featuring a police chief (Russ) and an Episcopalian priest (Clare) as sleuths. It's very, very good, with strong writing and appealing characters. I'm normally really put off by stories that call upon the reader to root for divorce or adultery (Russ is married, not miserably but not all that happily either), but in this case I had sympathy for everyone involved.

In For a Penny (Rose Lerner, 2010) is the debut book of one of my critique partners. And it is wonderful. If you're tired of wallpaper Regency historical romances and are looking for something grounded in its place and time, this is the book for you. It's very well-written with sympathetic, engaging characters, too.

Recent reading

In times of stress and difficulty, there's nothing quite like a good escapist book, especially when you're spending hours upon hours on airplanes. So it's not surprising I've read three such books since the beginning of the year. (I've also re-read almost all of Northanger Abbey, which is its own kind of escapism. It's not even close to my favorite Austen book, but Henry Tilney is probably the Austen hero I'd marry myself if I could.)

The Unlacing of Miss Leigh (Diane Gaston, 2009) is a Harlequn Undone--i.e. a historical romance novella published solely in electronic form. Though I'm normally all about long fiction (sagas preferred!), I'm finding I really enjoy romance novellas. With longer romances, I often find myself getting impatient with the couple and wondering if they really belong together if they have so many misunderstandings and so much difficulty in solving them. (Not always, just often.)

I thought this was an especially good story for the novella form, since Gaston set it up so that the couple had a childhood history and had also exchanged letters before meeting in person, thus making it seem logical that the couple could know each other well enough to commit after 15,000 words or less. (That being the equal and opposite problem facing romantic shorts. With a bad full-length romance, I think, "Get on with it already!" With a bad short one, I think, "You're crazy if you're committing to him already. For all you know he's an axe murderer.) Anyway, here a literally battle-scarred hero and a down-on-her-luck heroine find mutual comfort and passion, and it's a sweet and sexy quick read.

Though I'm really tired of the whole sin/wicked/naughty trend in romance titles--it's become way overdone, IMHO--I picked up Wicked All Day (Liz Carlyle, 2009) in a bookstore because the cover caught my eye, read the prologue and liked it, and decided to order a Kindle edition. (Yes, I sometimes buy books for my Kindle while shopping in a bricks-and-mortar store. I just don't see the point of cluttering my house with a physical book when it's available for the Kindle unless the book has illustrations or otherwise doesn't work well in e-format.) It was the perfect read for a long flight, and I mean that entirely as a compliment. There was a large, appealing cast of characters, the hero and heroine were believably flawed but still likable, and the romance was romantic.

Heat Wave (2009) is purportedly by Richard Castle, whom fans of Nathan Fillion will recognize as the mystery author he plays on the ABC mystery series Castle. I have no idea how well the book works on its own as a thriller, because I don't read the genre. I read it through the lens of the TV series and characters and enjoyed it on that level.

Loving a Lost Lord

I have to start with my usual caveat about hating the cover. If I were Queen of the Publishing Industry, no cover in any genre would be approved unless everyone on the editing, design, and marketing teams could honestly say they'd be perfectly comfortable reading the book on a plane, a bus, the cafeteria at work, in front of elderly parents and young children, etc. It's easily possible to make a cover that's romantic, even sexy, that's still tasteful. This, IMHO, isn't it.

Loving a Lost Lord (Mary Jo Putney, 2009) is the first in a new historical romance series about childhood friends known as the "Lost Lords" because they met at a school for aristocratic problem children. The story opens with several of the friends coming together to search for one of their number, the Duke of Ashton, who is missing and presumed lost at sea. He isn't, of course--he merely has amnesia and thinks he's married to the lady who found him. If that sounds a bit over-the-top, it is, and to enjoy this book you need to be in the mood to embrace the OTT--besides the amnesia, it's got murder attempts, long-lost relatives returning from the supposedly-dead, etc. And it has a certain degree of prequelitis, with multiple friends of the hero clearly being set up for their own stories. I wouldn't recommend it for anyone who's never read Putney before--my favorites of hers are One Perfect Rose and Shattered Rainbows--but if you're already a fan, you'll enjoy the start of a new series.

Don't Tempt Me

Loretta Chase is one of my favorite romance authors because of the wit, historical detail, and high quality of her writing. Her latest, Don't Tempt Me (2009), is a quick, fun read, but I don't think it's going to go on my list of all-time favorites. (Mr. Impossible, Lord of Scoundrels, The Devil's Delilah)

The heroine of Don't Tempt Me is a young English lady who was stolen as a child traveling with her parents in Egypt and spent 12 years in a harem. She's a fun heroine because she's forgotten enough of her original culture (or was too young when she was abducted to understand it) to have an outsider's perspective on the familiar "high society in 1818" setting. But I had a few problems with her characterization, too, that kept this book from joining my list of Chase favorites. She seems to get over the trauma of her captivity very quickly. Also, she's one of my least favorite romance cliches: the virgin widow. (She was given to a pasha's son in hopes she could cure his impotence, and she couldn't.) I understand how the virgin widow got started. With a widowed heroine in a historical romance, you can have an older heroine--25 or 30 instead of 18 or 20, say--and one who has more freedom and autonomy than a young, unmarried girl. And by making her a virgin, you still have the common reader fantasy of the hero as her one-and-only, and you don't have to deal with children of a previous marriage, or, conversely, a heroine grieving dead children or miscarriages or dealing with infertility. Still. I don't like it. I'm fine with both innocent and experienced romance heroines, but innocent ones who should be experienced just make me roll my eyes. If you want to write a virgin, find a way to get around (or work within) the social constraints on never-been-married women in your chosen historical era. And if your heroine is a widow, either have her deal with the trauma of a bad experience or, if her marriage was happy, have her (and your readers) accept that it's possible to have more than one great love!

Anyway. With that caveat, Don't Tempt Me is still a fun book. If I managed to finish a book featuring a virgin widow from a harem, the writing must've been strong!

The Lion's Daughter

The Lion's Daughter (Loretta Chase, 1992) isn't your usual historical romance novel. It's set mostly in Armenia, for starters, though the action eventually moves to England (the year is 1818). It's at least as much adventure story as romance, which is never a problem for me.

I enjoyed it, but it's not Chase's best work, IMO. (I'd say her best is Mr. Impossible, but that's a minority opinion. Many readers I know say Lord of Scoundrels is not only her best book, it's the best historical romance they've ever read, period.) Still, average Loretta Chase is still thoroughly readable. I may have been mildly bothered by the age gap between the hero and heroine--he was 28 and she 18--especially since he spent most of the book thinking she was younger still, even while he lusted after her. (It's not that I think there's anything wrong with a ten year age gap per se. I'm planning a couple with a ten-year gap in my WIP series, but they're more like 40 and 30 when they hook up. I'm just not a big fan of double-digit age gaps when the younger partner is still in her teens.) And I may have thought the plot a bit convoluted and hard to keep track of. But I still enjoyed it, and if you're looking for an adventurous romance in an unusual setting, give this book a try.

Rachel LeMoyne

Rachel LeMoyne (Eileen Charbonneau, 1999) was inspired by a historical footnote--the fact that the Choctaw Nation, less than twenty years after their forcible removal from Mississippi to Oklahoma, took up a collection for victims of the Great Famine in Ireland. Charbonneau elaborates on that incident, having a Choctaw schoolteacher, Rachel LeMoyne, travel to Ireland with a pair of missionaries to help distribute the aid. She gets involved in the Irish people's struggles, marries an Irishman wanted by the English for assorted acts of what they consider sedition, and brings him back to America with her, where they end up on the Oregon Trail.

I never expected to read a book that featured the Trail of Tears AND the Great Famine AND the Oregon Trail, but it makes sense and gives the book an old-fashioned saga-like appeal. Rachel, her husband, and her brother occasionally seem too super-capable in the course of their travels, giving them a bit of an Ayla & Jondalar feel as they overcome prejudices by assorted medical, mechanical, educational, and equestrian skills, but it's a thoroughly enjoyable read that kept me turning pages.