Review: Too Good To Be True

Too Good To Be True by Kristan Higgins

I have to come right out and admit that I’ve got a soft-spot for this talented contemporary romance author. From her quippy dialogue to her pitch-perfect love scenes, I just can’t get enough of her writing.  I haven’t reviewed her here before (no less than a travesty, I realize) and so I’ve decided to start with my very favorite of her extensive catalog: Too Good To Be True.

In this sweet and spicy romance tale, Grace Emerson is a woman torn apart by an ex-fiance but determined to move forward with her life. Even when he starts dating (and soon proposes) to her younger sister. If she didn’t love her baby sister so much, she might actually be mad.  Instead, she licks her wounds privately and forges onward… by making up an imaginary doctor boyfriend to keep her family quiet.  Makes sense.

But when smoking hot Callahan O’Shea moves in

Review: Naughty or Nice

Naughty or Nice: Christmas Erotica Stories
Edited by Alison Tyler

Happy Holidays! If you’re looking for a little Christmas cheer that, ahem, gets your fires roaring… well, here it is!  This compilation of short stories, collected from some of the hottest erotica writers and edited by famed erotic novelist Alison Tyler, delivers the goods and much more.

Described as “a blazing-hot feast of holiday erotica sure to jingle sleigh bells and curl mistletoe,” this collection features a little bit of everything to please almost everyone.  There’s some bondage, BDSM, lesbian encounters, gay love stories, and even an incident with a couple of candy canes, if that’s your thing. This book separates the good girls from the bad, then gets them both naked.

Review: The Firebrand

The Firebrand (The Chicago Fire Trilogy) by Susan Wiggs

This book was not what I was expecting. The cover has a woman reclining in heaping amounts of satin, bosoms apparently bursting at the seams. You look at a cover and expect some things, you know?

Well, color me pleasantly surprised. The heroine is not a classic beauty waiting to be ravished by the hunka-hunka burnin’ somethin’ next door. Rather she’s a forward-thinking suffragette in a time when that was just not cool. She survives the Chicago Fire and saves a baby thrown from a burning building in the process. Awesome, right? She works hard, supporting both her adopted daughter and her mother, and opens a bookstore. When the little girl’s father is found, well, things just get complicated.

We’re Back!

Happy December, everyone! And Happy Holidays as well. We hope you had a wonderful Thanksgiving, with lots of turkey, pie, and family fun.  Now, as we prepare for winter snow and gift-buying, it’s back to business here at Love on the Bookshelf.

See, last month was National Novel Writing Month, so some of us writers here were, well, writing… furiously. But that’s all over now, so on to the reading and reviewing once again!  We’ll be featuring books this month by Susan Wiggs, Kelly Armstrong, Lili Tufel, Katie Stephens, Alison Taylor, Kristan Higgins and more!  I hope you’re ready for some great reviews!

With our return to blogging, I’d also like to send out a call for new submissions for the new year!  If you’re a romance author with a book you’d like us to review, please email as at loveonthebookshelf@yahoo.com with details about yourself and the book.  We’d love to take a peek!

We’re also hoping to profile more authors! If you’d like to get involved, email me directly at stephaniehaddad@yahoo.com to get interviewed.

Best wishes to you all for a happy holiday season! Happy Reading!

Author Profile: Doug Welch

Chatting with us from Pacific coast of Southern California is author Doug Welch, whose novel Sail Beyond Tomorrow was reviewed here not too long ago. Happily married and still in love for over thirty years, Doug is the father of three girls or, rather, “three wonderful people whom [he] loves beyond words.” Recently retired, Doug writes novels in his spare time, keeping him from completely vanishing from society. His early thoughts to write hard science fiction evolved slowly to include elements of romance. Now, Doug writes sci-fi, paranormal romance, and straight romance, but refuses to classify himself as just a one-genre writer in anticipation of some “way-out stuff in the future.”

In 2010, Doug got his first inspiration to write. As he discovered that he’d run out of books (and ebooks!) to read, he realized that if he couldn’t find anything to read, he’d better write something for himself. His first book, Shadow Games, as the initial result, published in October 2010 on Smashwords. Since then, Doug has written three more books—a prolific author indeed!

So where do all of his ideas come from? Doug says he dreams in Technicolor, with lots of mysterious themes and characters thrown into the mix, and sometimes the dreams linger. When they do, he starts to write about them and the story evolves into strange places he hasn’t planned to go. As a result, Doug’s writing skirts around the typical sci-fi and paranormal cast of characters to explore new concepts that open up new ideas to him. Writing stories the way he likes to read them, Doug’s novels were a learning experience in themselves, but have paid off brilliantly as he develops his craft.

Doug shared these words about his trial-and-error approach to becoming an author:

“The whole experience has sometimes been embarrassing (like for instance when a reader in a review points out that you made a rookie grammar error), but mostly very rewarding. At last count over sixty thousand people, all across the world, from nearly every country, have downloaded and read my first book. While it’s nothing like the success of other self-published authors, I’m encouraged by the results and eager to write all the other books parked in the back of my mind.”

His latest release, Sail beyond Tomorrow is a combination of the end-of-the-world controversy sparked by the supposed end of the Mayan Cycle in 2012 and Doug’s desire to “write what you know”. Although the book began as two separate love stories, one appealing to the forty-plus generation and one appealing to the twenty-plus generation, Doug eventually decided to weave the two threads together into one story.

Sail Beyond Tomorrow is available on Smashwords, Barnes and Noble, Apple iTunes Bookstore and Amazon

Coming soon, look for Doug’s novel Shadow Spies, the sequel to Shadow Games, planned for a release this fall 2011. The series is planned as four books with Shadow Twins coming in late 2012 and Shadow Reflections in early 2013. Doug also has plans for two more “killer books” to be written when his skills are honed and sharp and a major revision to his free book Reality Plague.

For more information and the latest news from Doug Welch, read his blog, check out his website, and find him on Facebook!

Author Profile: Katie Stephens

This weekend we’re visiting with Katie Stephens, author of the recently released Candles on the Sand. As a contemporary romance and chick lit author, Katie lives in Camberley in Surrey in the UK with her loving husband and two beautiful daughters. Candles is her first published novel.

Katie’s writing journey began four years ago when she enrolled in a creative writing course. Instantly hooked, Katie used the time away from her two young children to explore her own creative side and pen homework assignments that would later become Candles on the Sand. As a lifelong story lover, Katie says her inspiration evolves when she lets her characters take her on their journey.

In Candles on the Sand, Katie tells her story on the Amalfi Coast in Italy, where Anna has gone to escape her cheating fiancé and domineering mother just eight weeks before the wedding. By chance, she winds up in San Lavello, a small fishing town where Anna finds a new home, a new job, and some very special friends.  Even better, Anna begins to discover who she really is and, with the help of her new friends, begins to live the life she’s always wanted for herself. When San Lavello comes under threat, Anna must help to save the town.

Find out for yourself where Anna’s journey takes her with an ebook or paperback copy.  You can order copies of Candles on the Sand at Amazon.co.uk, Amazon.com, Smashwords, iTunes, and Barnes and Noble.

Coming soon from Katie, a second novel… this time set in Kenya!

Learn more about Katie Stephens on her website! You can also follow her on Facebook or on Twitter @KatieStephens69.

Review: Prelude to a Scandal

Prelude to a Scandal by Delilah Marvelle

This book, and the spunky character of Lady Justine, hooked me from page one. With interspersed quotes from the guidebook How To Avoid a Scandal, Marvelle transports you back in time to witness first hand the blooming romance between Lady Justine and her dark, scarred husband Radcliffe, the Duke of Bradford. And it’s not as easy as it sounds for them to get together.

Justine grew up in South Africa, where her father studied the sexual habits of animals in the wild to better understand human relations. Now in London, she’s awkward and outcast, clinging to her etiquette book to fit into the ton society. The Duke, on the other hand, is quickly fascinated by her and offers his hand to Justine (there are some political moves happening here as well, but all in the background.) So now they’re married and it turns out he’s a sex addict

Review: The Sleeping Beauty

The Sleeping Beauty by Mercedes Lackey

It’s not easy being a princess in a fairy tale – especially when you’re beautiful, intelligent, and of marriageable age. Best case scenario: you’re walking along and fall madly in love with a handsome, intelligent, compatibly aged prince. Worst case scenario: you die in a really horrible way. In this land The Tradition (this unthinking, omnipresent, magical force) will make you follow a Traditional path whether you want to or not.

Rosa (unlike many princesses) is well versed in The Tradition and its many ins and outs, so when she’s chased down by the Huntsman and “rescued” by seven dwarves she thinks she knows what she’s getting into. But the dwarves are far from friendly, and the resident fairy godmother needs to step in

Author Profile: Julia Hughes

Today, we’re chatting with Julia Hughes, author of the novel A Ripple in Time, from Harefield, England, the last village in London. Writing under her maiden name—to spare her sons’ blushes—Julia enjoys writing the kinds of books she likes to read. As a storyteller since childhood, Julia has been writing almost as long—a lifetime of spinning tales.  Her debut novel, A Ripple in Time, is just the latest proof of her story-telling journey (reviewed her last month, too!)

When asked where her inspiration comes from, Julia explains that it can strike her anywhere, anytime. Her thought process is best described in her own words:

“My world is full of ‘what ifs,” she says. “That’s how I came to write A Ripple in Time. By pondering what if the Titanic had never made that fateful collision? The Titanic tragedy signaled the beginning of the end of the ‘golden era’ culminating in the bloody brutal WW1. The Allied & Axis armies basically fought each other to a standstill. It was only America’s intervention that swung the tide. If somehow the Titanic not sinking prevented America from entering that war, what then? And this is how the novel began to grow.”

In A Ripple in Time, the main character Wren’s dreams collide with a young girl aboard the Titanic, accidentally alerting her to the disaster and inspiring her to change her fate. As the catalyst in a series of events that be undone for the sake of mankind, this incident sends Wren back in time to rectify the mistake. This paranormal romance suspends reality in favor of a well told adventure and brings to life an entire parallel universe in doing so.

If you would like to win a free copy of Julia’s debut novel, comment on this post. Five lucky readers will win! Look for the results on November 30, 2011!

Find A Ripple in Time for sale here: Smashwords, Amazon.co.uk and Amazon.com

Follow Julia’s Facebook page or connect with her via Twitter @Tinkertoldmeto. Julia and her book can also be found on Goodreads

Author Profile: Lili Tufel

Chatting with us from Miami, Florida, this week is author of the romantic thriller Sand, Lili Tufel. As she looks forward to the release of her novella “Letters from the King” later this year, she took a moment to answer some of our questions.

A writer for all of her life, Lili says she loves to tell stories. Writing novels is just another way for her to share stories with others, and in February 2011, she published her debut novel, “Sand.” In this novel, Dallas, a Special Forces Lieutenant, promises to protect the Colonel’s daughter (Abby) from an opium drug lord. Torn between his duty and his love for Abby, Dallas soon discovers that love may be at risk. The drug lord’s charming and murderous son has befriended Abby… but Dallas will do anything he can to protect her.

“Sand” is available from Amazon, Apple iTunes, Barnes & Noble, and Smashwords as an eBook for all standard eReaders. International readers can also find it on Amazon UK or Amazon Germany! Look for our forthcoming review of Lili’s first novel, right here at Love on the Bookshelf!

Stay tuned at Lili’s blog for more information about her upcoming novella “Letters from the King.”  In this romantic thriller, King Johann has been taken hostage in secret. His seal is being forged to incite a war. The king, pressured to write proof-of-life letters to his queen, hides a secret message in the love letters. The queen embarks on a journey to find her husband.

Also on the horizon is “Palms,” the story of a high-profile kidnapping. When a famous Piano-Man’s daughter is  kidnapped by the Farc, a dangerous group of Guerillas in South America, she quickly finds out that one of her captors — Ex-Navy Seal, Anthony Mangiaracina — is not who he seems. This story is also coming soon from Lili Tufel!

For more information, join SAND Facebook fans at: http://www.facebook.com/novelSand Or follow Lili on Twitter @Lili_Tufel