Pandora's Box: Run to You by Rachel Gibson

By |2017-06-23T08:30:38-04:00October 14th, 2013|Categories: AAR Jenna, Haley AAR, Pandora's Box|Tags: , |

runtoyou Today Haley and Jenna have fan favorite Rachel Gibson up in Pandora’s Box with her latest release, Run to You Here’s the basic set-up: Former Marine turned security professional Beau Junger agrees to do his buddy Vince a favor – drive to Miami and locate Stella Leon and let her know that her half-sister is looking for her. What he doesn’t promise to do is to embark on a road trip with Stella from Miami to Amarillo, Texas. As they make their way across the south, Beau and Stella drive each other crazy, but in the very best of ways.

Note: This discussion may contain some slight spoilers

JENNA So, Haley, this is my first ever Pandora’s Box, and I can’t think of an author I’d rather read than Rachel Gibson.

HALEY Same here! I have really loved her hockey-based books – and I don’t even like hockey […]

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AAR Staff Top Ten Favorites: Dabney’s Picks

By |2019-05-10T13:07:02-04:00September 24th, 2013|Categories: All About Romance, Dabney AAR|Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , |

RMBIt was the summer of 2008 and I, a passionate reader, had my first Kindle. It was magical–a device you could just push a button and get books, as many as you could find and afford, and read to your heart’s content. I’d had the thing for a couple of weeks and was perusing the Amazon Kindle page. I can’t remember if it was free or it was the most downloaded book of the day but that day I decided to buy Karen Marie Moning’s Darkfever. At the time, I hadn’t read a romance novel for over thirty years. That book sucked me in and I still haven’t been spit out. I had a problem, however. I wanted to read more romance but had no way to figure out which ones sucked and which rocked. Thank the gods for the internet. A few clicks and, boom, I discovered […]

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Speaking of Audiobooks: Bits of Audio News

By |2017-06-23T08:30:39-04:00August 26th, 2013|Categories: audio books, Lea Hensley|Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , |

Kinsale-FlowersfromtheStorm-shadow(1) Quality versus Quantity

With more and more romance audiobooks flooding Audible these days, it’s not all that easy to locate those audios that may be of particular interest to you. Just two years ago, the romance audio pickings remained slim with proven narrators performing the majority of titles. As with the eBook market, I imagine most readers/listeners understand that increased selection doesn’t necessarily mean increase in the number quality titles.

Of course, with this tremendous increase in audio titles, it only makes sense that there is an increase in the need for narrators as well. Unfortunately, this also means publishers are looking for the most affordable way to bring those narrations to their doorstep and home studios provide them with such. Combine an untrained narrator with a home studio with no director, and the consumer pays the price of an unsatisfactory listening experience.

The result? The percentage of overall quality […]

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AAR Staff Top Ten Favorites – Haley's Picks

By |2019-05-10T13:11:59-04:00August 20th, 2013|Categories: All About Romance, Haley AAR, Romance reading|Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , |

texasdestiny When I sat down to put this list together, I thought this would really be a piece of cake. Well, I was wrong. It turns out, I had more like a top twentysomething list and narrowing it down was not all that easy. Another thing I noticed is that so many of the books represented were some of the very first I ever read. My love of the romance genre began when I was a pre-teen and started pilfering books off my mother’s bookshelf. I knew she wouldn’t be happy with me reading them because I was so young, so I hid them under my bed or in the window seat. I got caught once while reading a book I loved, but now I can’t remember the title, and was told I was forbidden to read the romances. That didn’t stop me. I only grew more and […]

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AAR Staff Top Ten Favorites – Lea's Picks

By |2019-05-10T13:11:23-04:00August 8th, 2013|Categories: All About Romance, Lea Hensley, Romance reading|Tags: , , , , , , , , , , |

keeperofthedream As I’m sure a number of other AAR reviewers discovered when choosing their Top Ten Favorite romance books, it’s not an easy task. I whittled my list down to twenty and realized some of my absolute favorites still had to be marked off the list. I wondered, should I include those ultimate favorites from ten years ago when I was most passionate about the romance genre? Or, now that my tastes have evolved, should I choose newer discoveries that more closely match my tastes today? And since I listen to so many audiobooks, how could I keep those with excellent audio deliveries from influencing my choice of print books? Not easy. But then I realized just how much my Top Ten audiobooks list would differ from those books available in print format only and decided to not mix the two. I’ll save my list of top audiobooks […]

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AAR Staff Top 10 Favorites – LinnieGayl's Picks

By |2019-05-10T13:10:32-04:00July 2nd, 2013|Categories: All About Romance, LinnieGayl AAR, Romance reading|Tags: , , , , , , , , , |

seaswept As one of AAR’s three pollsters – along with LeeB and Cindy – I truly adore the Top 100 poll. Sure, it’s a lot of work, but it’s also fun to look at the ballots as they come in. I was excited when everyone at AAR decided to post their top ten romances as a lead-up to the Top 100 polling in October. But I was also a bit nervous. Since I’ve seen the ballots AAR readers submitted in 2007 and 2010, I know that my top ten romances are a bit idiosyncratic.

Like most of my colleagues at AAR, I decided to set up some rules for my Top 10. I’ve made no attempt to balance the list by subgenre. Nor did I limit my list to just one romance per author (as you’ll quickly see). But I did decide to list just one entry from each […]

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AAR Staff Top Ten Favorites – Mary's Picks

By |2019-05-10T13:08:47-04:00May 28th, 2013|Categories: All About Romance, Mary AAR, Romance|Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , |

There is absolutely no possible way that I can trim my favorite romance novels down to ten. Therefore, I am going to take a page from other reviewers’ entries and exempt those written in the 19th century (Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen, Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte and North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell). I am also going to state that Outlander by Diana Gabaldon is a given, but because the story continues and the end has not yet been written, it will be excluded from my top 10 list. I am also going to exclude A Kingdom of Dreams by Judith McNaught, because Jenna included it her list and I would not want to be redundant. So…in no particular order and with the caveat that I could exchange some books on this list at any time, here is my qualified Top 10 list: […]

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Speaking of Audiobooks: It's All Reviews – May 2013

By |2017-06-23T08:30:45-04:00May 20th, 2013|Categories: audio books, Lea Hensley|Tags: , , , , , , , , , , |

TPOM-print It’s time for another All Reviews column here at Speaking of Audiobooks. Eight audiobooks are up for review including Laura Kinsale’s The Prince of Midnight (no link yet for the audio), Rachel Gibson’s Simply Irresistible, Julie James’ Love Irresistibly, Julie Garwood’s Prince Charming, Cynthia Eden’s Die for Me, J.D. Robb’s Calculated in Death, Jeaniene Frost’s Twice Tempted, and Sophie Kinsella’s Wedding Night.

The Prince of Midnight – Laura Kinsale

Narrated by Nicholas Boulton

Review written by Lea Hensley

It’s finally here. Romance listeners have eagerly awaited The Prince of Midnight, the first audio release from Laura Kinsale’s fascinating backlist. Earlier this year, Ms. Kinsale announced that her entire backlist (twelve titles) would be released in audio during 2013 and into 2014 and now we have a taste of Kinsale’s skillful writing combined with Nicholas Boulton’s talented performance. It’s sheer audio perfection.

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Speaking of Audiobooks: It's All Reviews – March 2013

By |2017-06-23T08:30:48-04:00March 25th, 2013|Categories: audio books, Lea Hensley|Tags: , , , , , , , , |

It Must Be Love It’s time for another All Reviews column here at Speaking of Audiobooks. Six audiobooks are up for review including Rachel Gibson’s It Must Be Love, Pamela Clare’s Breaking Point, Julie Garwood’s The Secret, Jayne Ann Krentz’s Dream Eyes, Diana Miller’s Dangerous Affairs, and Maya Bank’s Rush.

It Must be Love by Rachael Gibson

Narrated by Rebecca Tripp

Review written by Carrie

I’ve read all Gibson’s books and was excited about listening to It Must Be Love on audio. I’m pleased to say the narrator is a win, but certain aspects of the plot make the book less enjoyable than I remembered.

Gabrielle, our heroine, mixes herbal remedies and essential oils and talks about auras and karma. She meditates and chants and attempts to find her peaceful center. The street festival in our local university town would be an ideal place to find […]

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The (Not So) Magic Moment

By |2017-06-23T08:31:14-04:00February 16th, 2012|Categories: Characters, Maggie AAR, Romance reading|Tags: , , , |

oneformoney In her blog titled Stuart’s Coat, Sara’s Spectacles, and Jessica’s Glove , Sandy talked about “those hit-you-in-the-heart scenes. The kind you remember. The kind you share with other readers who very often respond “Yes!” The kind that make you feel what the characters are feeling.” In other words, the magic moments, the ones that define a love story.

Recently I’ve run across the opposite of the magic moment. This is a scene in which an author, with just a few lines, turns you against her hero or heroine. It’s an act or statement that makes you wish the other party would get with someone else, anyone else. It’s the I-can’t-get-over-what-just-happened blues. It can ruin a good book or at the very least, ruin the HEA.
[…]

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