Month: February 2013

         Dawn!

You won your own Julie Lessman book!

About

Perfect? Everything seems to be going right for Cassidy Brewster—she’s the star of her high school basketball team, has a near-perfect GPA, and college recruiters are showing up at her games. But during the state tournament she injures herself, and her season appears to be over. With pressures at home and at school, Cassidy turns desperate and makes choices that only increase the number of problems in her life. As Cassidy’s carefully controlled world falls apart, a mysterious book begins to speak to her, and it might just contain the answers Cassidy has been trying to find.

Review

I so enjoyed this book! It is the third book of the Real Life series, but you don’t need to read them in order to understand what is happening. In this novel, Cassidy is the main character and she starts off with a bit of a complex and I enjoyed seeing how she changed and developed throughout the novel. I particularly liked the guy she ends up with because, having read two other novels in this series, he wasn’t what I was expecting. He was not the typical perfect teen boy that is in every teen romance. I also thought it was very realistic of the author that not all the loose ends were tied up. When the book ended, everything was not perfect, but you could begin to see a glimmer of how things would change. Personally,  I love how each character of Ms. Rue’s is so unique and so different and I don’t feel like I’m reading the same person with a different name. Spiritually, I love how the “Bible” becomes personalized for Cassidy. And if you’ve read other books in this series than you really see how Ms. Rue was able to use different parts of the Bible to speak to each girl’s situation. So true to real life. This is a great YA novel! Highly Recommended!

About

Lady Celine Wexham seems the model British subject. French by birth but enjoying life in 1813 as a widowed English countess, she is in the unique position of being able to help those in need–or to spy for the notorious Napoleon Bonaparte. When Rees Phillips of the British Foreign Office is sent to pose as the countess’s butler and discover where her true loyalties lie, he is confident he will uncover the truth. But the longer he is in her fashionable townhouse in London’s West End, the more his staunch loyalty to the Crown begins to waver as he falls under Lady Wexham’s spell. Will he find the proof he needs? And if she is a spy after all, will he do the right thing?

Review

As a huge fan of regency novels, I was greatly looking forward to this book because how on earth does an aristocratic woman fall in love with her butler? Well, you’ll just have to read the novel to find out! 😉 I thought that this novel was a bit slow in parts, particularly because I cherished every moment that Rees and Celine were together. Because when they were together, it was totally worth it. I really enjoyed that there was an openness to this book that was refreshing because deceptiveness in books can be a tricky issue to me. Spiritually, I like how Rees hears from God and ultimately answers to him and how his faith affects Celine’s. Overall, I really enjoyed this novel and look forward to the next one!

Anyone who peruses the shelves of current romance novels will see that supernatural romances are really in right now. I think they have been in for a while because when I worked at a library, I saw them being constantly checked out. However, Twilight (which I have not read) catapulted them into a whole ‘nother category. Now men (and sometimes women) are werewolves, aliens, angels, vampires (a dead person who could eat you at anytime is not attractive!), etc., and it made me wonder why on earth these books are so addictive. So I read one recently about an angel falling in love with a girl, which, for the record is so un-Biblical. But, I liked it. It lured me in. So why are these novels so fascinating? Here is my thesis:

1. We long for a supernatural God. I know you’re thinking what does God have to do with it? Everything. I think God designed us to want more than the mundane in life, to want more than what we can just see. And furthermore God designed women for romance. And the combination of the two has translated into these unique storylines. In our heart of hearts, we want more. 

2. They take us back to our original gender roles. The guys are generally very masculine. I think the desire for these types of romance is a push-back against society trying to make men more feminine. Ok, I have no proof of this. But honestly, the media tries to make men more like women and I think women don’t want that. These supernatural guys (I haven’t read that many, but) have a tendency to be very strong, and very sure of themselves in ways that I think human guys are being put down. Also, there’s usually a reason for the supernatural guy, some kind of war or something in which he has to protect the girl with his supernatural power and once again you have the male protecting the female, just like in the olden days.

3. It’s different. Supernatural romances allow the writer to attribute to the characters anything they want. This allows for each novel to be different…though I think after a while, regardless of their powers they are all the same. But, all these possible different combinations can make for far more interesting storylines than perhaps the usual guy or girl next door story.

So, these are some of my reasons. Do you have anymore you want to add? Any you disagree with?

Thank you for willing to be interviewed!

Thanks so much for asking 🙂

1. When writing mysteries, for you, what comes first? The villain? The mystery? Or how it’s solved?

What a great question! For me it’s usually the mystery. I have a ‘what if’ idea and then I let it roll.

2. How far in advance do you plan the subplots of the other siblings? Or do they surprise you?

When I started my Alaskan Courage series, I knew some things that I wanted to happen down the road with different characters, but they have definitely surprised me with each and every story. For example, I anticipated Piper’s story being last, but as you can see with Shattered, she was ready for her story to be told.

3. Piper has a really great personality, that I for one found refreshing. Of all the ladies in your novels, which one is your favorite?

Very tough question. I love all the ladies in my Alaskan Courage series. Piper is so sweet and fierce, I can’t help but adore her, but I probably empathize closest with Bailey Craig. As a new Christian, I really struggled with letting go of my past, just as Bailey did. Bailey will always have a special place in my heart.

4. What characteristics did you know Landon had to have in order to be a good match for Piper?

To be quite honest, I didn’t. I don’t chart out my characters or anything before I write. I daydream about them and, since I’m such a visual person, I usually have a picture of

what I envision them looking like, but then I just let the story unfold. And, of course, there are always rewrites to fine-tune the areas that need tweaking.

5. Can you tell us anything about the next novel that you’re writing?

Sure. I’m finishing up the revisions on Stranded (the third book in my Alaskan Courage series), which is due to release September 1st. Stranded is Gage and Darcy’s story.

You can check out my review here:https://remaininhislove.com/2013/01/03/dani-pettreys-shattered/

About

McKenna Ross left home eight years ago, her heart broken by the man she had loved since she was a child. Now after eight long years of praying for God to either take away her love for Jace Tremaine, or to make Jace fall in love with her, McKenna feels as if she’s being called home. Is God finally leading her home to be with Jace? Or does He have something altogether different planned for McKenna?

Review

I’ve read a couple of Lisa Crane’s books now and the thing I love most about her novels is that they are just straight up romance with no complications. She’s my go to girl for comfort romance and this novel is no different. First of all, I love how she takes an old familiar concept and makes it new. In fact, (and I’m not sure if this was her point or not) I like that the novel seems to say you can’t play games with people. They move on, they don’t wait forever. Too many romance novels act like one person is the only key to your happiness. The only issue I took with this novel was Ethan. He was in it entirely too long and I couldn’t understand why. The book is a bit shorter than I would have liked, but at the end I didn’t feel like I was missing anything. Spiritually, I love the idea of finding out God’s plan for your life and how, though it may be different, it’s always better. Good novel.

In case you haven’t been outside of your house or watched any tv recently, I am here to inform you that Valentine’s Day is this week and so I thought I would post a bit about the importance of the romantic formula. Lately I’ve been reading novels that have been trying to leave the romantic formula. There is a romantic formula and it goes like this: Guy and girl meet, for whatever reason they can’t be together right away, but eventually they get together. It’s simple really and people have made millions of dollars off it. And frankly, we love it. But, when authors go astray in their attempts to be creative and unique it has a tendency to leave me…cringing or uninterested. Here are some examples of formulas that do not work:

1. Guy and girl don’t meet until late into the book. They absolutely must meet within the first 5 chapters whether it’s through mail or in person. If this novel is being advertised as a romantic novel please don’t go post-modern on me and have them meet in the end. I bought the book for the interaction! I will skim, there I said it!

2. There is no problem. There must be a problem folks. It can be a tiny problem, but it must be a real problem. There is nothing more aggravating than when authors create mountains out of mole hills and I, the reader, start thinking that the characters are idiots. It’s never a good sign for the novel if I start not liking the characters. Also, I love straight up romance novels that don’t need mysteries or high drama so the problem doesn’t have to be intense. It could merely be personality differences, but then the author almost has to add humor to it for it to work. But at the end of the day, there must be a real problem. 

3. Two guys one girl. Yes, I went there. I hate this idea that has sprung from Twilight. I can deal with it if one guy is obviously a loser while the other is a winner. But I don’t like it when you have two attractive, Godly, wonderful, mysterious men and one girl who really isn’t all that. Maybe it’s the fact that I’m single and finding one good guy is hard enough let alone two, but I don’t care for it. One guy gets hurt, or I prefer one guy over the other, or they fight over the girl the whole book. To me, this formula can only work sometimes, but lately it seems to be a common theme that I’m just not in love with.

4. Guy must get girl in the end. I hate sad endings. I only want to cry happy tears when I read books and while I know some people think that books are more poignant when someone dies, I am not one of those people. So yes, if it’s a new author, I will flip to the back to make sure that someone gets together in the end.

Anyone have anything else to add? Anyone disagree?