Interesting topic this week, and not an easy one. I can’t
do a favorite reads list for the year, since all of my reading has been done in the last three months or so after recovering from my last deadline. At the moment I’m reading for “research” purposes, mainly to sink myself into the Regency Historical and Romantic suspense genres. My current project is a humorous suspense, but I do plan on writing a Regency historical in the future.
I thought I’d go ahead and comment on the books I’ve read anyway. Since some of these books were published prior to this year, I’m “cheating” there, too.
SO WILD A HEART by Candace Camp. A 2002 book from my TBR Mountain. It contains a mystery with a surprising twist–and I think I am hard to surprise! The characters were interesting, too. Worth the read.
MISS WONDERFUL by Loretta Chase, 2004. Loretta Chase is a star in the genre, so there was no way to go wrong with this choice. This is a humorous book with excellently written characters–not only the hero and heroine, but the heroine’s father. If you want to see characters who come alive, read this book. (MR IMPOSSIBLE is in my TBR pile).
THE PAID COMPANION by Amanda Quick. Generally, I am a fan of Jane Anne Krentz’s contemporaries and have not read many of her historicals, but they are popular, and I thought it best that I read her newest in paperback. Well, I enjoyed THE PAID COMPANION–I think it was due to the inclusion of the topic of the lost rivers of London. I’m glad I read this one, and I think I will treat myself to more.
Shifting gears…I started catching up on my Janet
Evanovich, whose Stephanie Plum series I dearly love. I have just finished THREE TO GET DEADLY and FOUR TO SCORE. They were both almost too much fun!
Currently I am reading…two books, actually.
One is MERELY 
MARRIED, a 1998 Regency historical by Patricia Coughlin, and the other is THERE’S ALWAYS PLAN B by Susan Mallery. Both promise to be enjoyable. THERE’S ALWAYS PLAN B is one of the new Harlequin NEXT novels written for the middle aged and older reader. It’s a “starting over” book with a fortyish heroine, her teenage daughter and the heroine’s mother. It seemed a propos for me to read, since I am “starting over” myself, so to speak…
I have just purchased THE PRICE OF INDISCRETION by Cathy Maxwell…will read this one soon.
So…there is my fiction list, albeit limited….
Laurie
Oh dear, more for the “books I should read someday list”!
I’m a bit surprised about the Amanda Quick. I’ve only read a few of hers, and though they were entertaining reads, they werent’t as original as books by other authors. This one sounds different!
Elena 🙂
Well, I have always tended to see her historicals as comfort reads, but in the several I have read, there have been some unusual elements–fossils in caves was something she explored in another historical I read.
I do like the “safe journey” she delivers. I am very into that these days–I never read dark novels as I did when I was young. The day was when I was a big fan of Herman Hesse. A lot of sand has run through the glass since then. 😉
Laurie
I love Amanda Quick, even though she’s definitely stealing from herself. But I continue to read her historicals–never tried her contemps, tried one of her SFs.
Laurie, I know you know this, but you should try to give yourself a break and read something just for fun. I do it all the time, although right now (ahem!), I don’t have a real deadline.
Nice to hear that you like Janet Evanovich! I started reading her Stephanie Plum series in 2005, and I’ve been plowing through them steadily. Don’t know what I’m going to do when I run out! (Well, wait for the next one, I guess. 🙂
I started keeping lists of all the books I read a few years ago, and I noticed after I took my current job that the volume dropped considerably. But I can’t complain, since I still spend a lot of time reading when I probably should be doing something useful…
Todd-who-resolves-to-do-more-of-everything-in-the-New-Year-and-who-needs-sleep-anyway
Todd, don’t you just love Janet Evanovich? Stephanie is my alter ego. I’d be like her in my fantasy. Well, not exactly like her! But I get a kick out of some of the small things–her affection for her gerbil, for instance, when she is so casual about so many other things. She really does have a big heart and is full of bluff. The gerbil proves it.
Janet had better never kill that gerbil. I don’t think she’d dare. If she did, don’t tell me! I want to enjoy the remaining books.
Has anyone read any of her other series, written in conjunction of another author whose name I can’t remember right now? The “Full…” Series. FULL HOUSE, FULL (Something Else), etc.
Laurie