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Winsome or Loathsome: Nora Colville

Welcome back to Winsome or Loathsome, the column in which AAR staffers lobby for and against controversial heroines. Today’s heroine is the leading lady of Meredith Duran’s At Your Pleasure, Nora Colville. If you haven’t read the book, be advised there are spoilers ahead.

In Meredith Duran’s At Your Pleasure, Nora Colville wanted to marry Adrian Ferrers, but in 1715, their Catholic/Protestant difference was too much for both families. Adrian was beaten and abducted, and Nora’s family pressed her into marriage with Lord Towe. She gave in, Lord Towe died, and Adrian, now the king’s agent, has come back looking for her brother David, a known Jacobite. For the first part of the book, I accepted Nora’s loyalty to her brother despite some red flags. But as the book goes on, Nora’s loyalty […]

By |2017-05-24T17:32:14-04:00June 24th, 2016|Categories: Caroline AAR, Winsome or Loathsome|Tags: |11 Comments
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TBR Challenge 2016 – Pick a Trope, Any Trope

ladyslesson There are few tropes I actively dislike, but I’m a sucker for a good marriage of convenience story. I love the idea of two people who don’t or who hardly know each other being put into a situation of enforced proximity and intimacy and watching them as they come to know and understand each other and to fall in love. It’s a trope that works especially well in historicals, and my enduring love for it is no doubt partly attributable to the fact that the first historical romance I remember reading is Julia Quinn’s The Viscount Who Loved Me which makes excellent use of the compromised-into-marriage plotline. […]

By |2017-06-23T08:30:08-04:00June 15th, 2016|Categories: Book news, Caz AAR, Lynn AAR, Romance reading|Tags: , , , , , |6 Comments
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Luck Be A Lady: A Pandora’s Box

Welcome to our Pandora’s Box on Meredith Duran’s Luck Be a Lady. 

They call her the “Ice Queen.” Catherine Everleigh is London’s loveliest heiress, but a bitter lesson in heartbreak has taught her to keep to herself. All she wants is her birthright—the auction house that was stolen from her. To win this war, she’ll need a powerful ally. Who better than infamous and merciless crime lord Nicholas O’Shea? A marriage of convenience will no doubt serve them both.

     Having conquered the city’s underworld, Nick seeks a new challenge. Marrying Catherine will give him the appearance of legitimacy—and access to her world of the law-abiding elite. No one needs to know he’s coveted Catherine for a year now—their arrangement is strictly business, free from the troubling weaknesses of love. Seduction, however, is a different matter—an enticing game he […]

By |2017-06-23T08:30:16-04:00September 19th, 2015|Categories: Books with Buzz, Caz AAR, Dabney AAR, Pandora's Box|Tags: |9 Comments
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TBR Challenge: Lots to Choose From

midnightangel Today we’re taking a little break from the RT author interviews for May’s installment of the TBR Challenge. For this month’s adventure through the TBR pile, I went looking for a book by an author represented multiple times in my stash of books waiting to be read. I’ve read a lot of Lisa Kleypas, but I still have plenty of her books in the TBR. The Russian angle of her 1995 historical, Midnight Angel appealed to me, so I decided to give that one a whirl.

Though the heroine is Russian, most of the book is set in England as we are treated to a governess and employer romance. Early on in the book, we as readers learn Tasia’s big secret.
She is actually a Russian aristocrat in disguise who has fled the country as she has been sentenced to death for killing her betrothed. Tasia has […]

By |2017-06-23T08:30:29-04:00May 21st, 2014|Categories: Caz AAR, Lynn AAR, Maggie AAR, Reading|Tags: , , , |3 Comments
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AAR Staff Top Ten Favorites – Blythe’s Picks

boundbyyourtouch I put off writing my top ten until the last possible moment for a variety of reasons. I wanted some time to think about it, but I knew even though I had lots of time I’d still be making choices at the last minute; it’s not unusual for me to make my Reviewer’s Choice top pick while I’m writing the column. I also decided my top seven fairly easily, and then got stuck on the final three. I agonized over which three deserved the final honors, and then ended up with some also rans. I’ve been reading romance for a long time, and that presented its own problems. Should I choose early, sentimental favorites, or more of the quality Johnny come lately offerings? Well, in reverse order, here’s my top ten (ish).

Also rans: Just for fun, my books that didn’t quite make the short list but almost did:

By |2019-05-10T13:07:50-04:00September 20th, 2013|Categories: AAR Blythe, All About Romance, Romance reading|Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , |24 Comments
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AAR Staff Top Ten Favorites – Caz's Picks

splendiddefiance Normally, the question “what’s your favourite book/piece of music/film?” is one that’s likely to turn me into a jibbering idiot and turn my mind completely blank. I mean really – just one favourite? And in any case, it usually depends on my mood on any one day. One day might demand Mozart and the next, Mahler. Or I’ll be in the mood for Die Hard one evening and Wall-E the evening after. By that token, if my choices tend to be mood dependent, how was I going to produce a list of titles that wasn’t going to change from day-to-day? So I decided the first thing I needed to do was to decide on the benchmark qualities I look for in a book that would qualify it for a place in my Top Ten.

Anyone that knows me knows I’m a bit of a stickler for good spelling and grammar, […]

By |2017-06-23T08:30:44-04:00June 4th, 2013|Categories: All About Romance, Books, Caz AAR|Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , |26 Comments
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AAR Staff Top Ten Favorites – Jane's Picks

outlander I started reviewing for AAR when I was pretty young – 18 years old, and still fairly new to the genre. My tastes have changed and evolved quite a bit in that time. Looking at my reviewer profile, which hasn’t been updated since I started, I am rather skeptical of my “favorites,” some of which I don’t even remember anymore. I couldn’t tell you a damn thing about Hidden Fires by Sandra Brown, except that 6 years ago it was apparently one of my favorites.

My philosophy in choosing favorites is two-fold. One, my Top Ten should be more than a fleeting “books I’m enjoying now,” and therefore aren’t recent reads, or ones that I’ve read only once. Two, they should have something in them that would appeal beyond the romance. I think there is a subtle distinction between “books that a romance reader would enjoy” and “books non-romance […]

By |2019-05-10T13:03:20-04:00May 21st, 2013|Categories: All About Romance, Books|Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , |14 Comments
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AAR Staff Top Ten Favorites – Jean's Picks

See, I knew that signing up for this blog would cause me a headache. How are you supposed to choose the top ten romances that rock your world? How? How? (At the back of my mind I have the Baha Men singing along, except it’s “How do you choose now? How, how, how, how?” Great. Hence the headache.)

Anyway, I figured the only way I can keep sane is a) recognize that I won’t hit them all, and b) acknowledge that if I am actually stuck on a desert island with only ten romance novels, I’d go crazy anyway, no matter what I chose. (Unless I chose, like, the Koran, Paradise Lost, and Journey to the West. Then maybe I’d not go all loopy.)

I decided that what I’d probably crave the most is variety, a little bit of every genre to suit every mood. It actually turned out to be relatively easy once I’d decided on this, […]

By |2017-06-23T08:30:45-04:00May 14th, 2013|Categories: All About Romance, Jean AAR, Romance reading, Uncategorized|Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , |17 Comments
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What's Your Favorite Type of Cover?

As long as I have read romance novels, I’ve been interested in their covers. They are bright and often lurid and embarrassing. Who wants to sit on a bus, or at a coffee shop, reading a book with the characters practically having sex on the cover? The marketing strategy is something I find fascinating and counter-intuitive, but it obviously works. A lot of casual readers do not know much about many authors or sub-genres or trends within the industry. They just pick up what looks interesting in the grocery store aisle.

In looking at many, many covers, I’ve found that many of them have similar characteristics, and similar styles. While there are, of course, exceptions, most cover styles fall into one of five categories: The Cute Animal, The Cute Couple, The Faceless Couple, The Solo Star, and the Sexy/”Clinch” Cover.
[…]

By |2017-06-23T08:31:09-04:00May 23rd, 2012|Categories: Books|Tags: , , , , , , , |39 Comments
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Eagerly Awaited in July

Every month, the staff here at AAR send me their lists of books on the new release list that they are eager to try. Going over the July list was extra fun because there were four new releases that clearly caught the attention of many. As I went through my emails, I wondered which book was going to hit the top slot. Would it be the new release from Loretta Chase or would it be Anne Stuart, Mary Balogh or Meredith Duran? In the end, Mary Balogh’s book won out with 11 AAR staffers declaring their anticipation of its arrival, but the books by Loretta Chase, Meredith Duran and Anne Stuart followed closely on its heels. In addition, as you can see from checking out the release list and our picks, July is looking like it could be a pretty good month.

By |2017-06-23T08:31:28-04:00June 20th, 2011|Categories: All About Romance, Lynn AAR, Romance reading|Tags: , , , , , , |12 Comments
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