On the Book Cart

Historical:
Loretta Chase Last Night's Scandal
Eileen Dreyer Barely a Lady
Elizabeth Hoyt Wicked Intentions
Eloisa James A Kiss at Midnight
Anne Stuart Ruthless
Mary Wine To Conquer a Highlander

Contemporary:
Suzanne Brockman Infamous
Kristan Higgins All I Ever Wanted
Susan Wiggs Summer Brides (anthology with Sherryl Woods and Susan Mallery)

Paranormal:
Heather Graham Ghost Night

Suspense:
Cynthia Eden Deadly Fear
Brenda Novak White Heat
Sharon Sala Swept Aside and Torn Apart

Book Trailer of the Week

Elizabeth Hoyt's latest release, Wicked Intentions, has just arrived in the library. If you like historicals with a bit of suspense and mystery, this one looks like a winner. Moving between St. Giles, one of London's most infamous slums, and the ballrooms of high society, Wicked Intentions tells the story of two people on desperate hunts. Temperance Daws must find a new patron for the foundling home her family runs, and Lazarus Huntington, Lord Caire, is hunting a notorious killer. This unlikely partnership brings both hero and heroine much more than they bargained for...

Harlequin's New Look

One of the oldest names in romance publishing has given its website a brand new look!
Harlequin's online home, eHarlequin, still has all the great features you've enjoyed in the past, and has added some new sections and made the whole site look cleaner and more contemporary. I like the fact that you can now shop either the "Bookstore" or the "eBookstore." My favorite section, though, is still the Harlequin Extras, with everything from contests to podcasts to writing guidelines. Shop, read, listen, and write -- what more could a romance fan want?

RITA and Golden Heart Award Winners Announced

One of the highlights of the RWA Conference is the announcement of the year's RITA and Golden Heart Award winners. The RITA is awarded to a published author; the Golden Heart goes to an author of an umpublished manuscript. I am happy to say that the library owns several of the RITA winners, and will acquire any others that are available. So check out the winners, and then check out the books!

Romance Reader on a Quest!!!

Sometimes I just don't know what I want to read. I'm tired of some of the authors I've followed for years. In my quest for some new ones, I checked out the RT Book Reviews website, the online companion to the magazine we use here at the library. They have a lovely search engine there that is worth blogging about. Check it out here.

You can search by keyword, author and title, of course. You can even search by the RT star rating. But the part that will have you all swooning (c'mon, we/re romance readers after all!) is the genre/type search capability for every category of romance you can think of.

Like paranormals? You can narrow your search to everything from your favorite type of creature to psychics.

If you want to control how hot the scenes can be, you can search first in either "Erotic Romance" or "Inspirational" and then break them further into categories.

Historicals especially are divided into all kinds of time period, style and locale you can think of. Imagine being able to come up with a substantive list of a specific sub-sub-subgenre! I was a little disappointed not to find anything in a category search for "Historical Romances: Gothic". (My grandmother is a fan of them so I'm always on the lookout.) However, a straight keyword search came up with a ton of hits where the word "Gothic" was used descriptively in reviews, several of which were categorized as "Top Picks".

A category search for "Romantic Suspense: All Romantic Suspense" came up with an overwhelming 1177 titles. But I was able to sort them by review date, RT star rating, or relevance to the search terms I used which made it a little more useful. RT also does reviews on other genre fiction you can search - mystery, thriller, sci-fi and suspense to name a few.

This website is also excellent for keeping up with the romance field in a broader sense. The main page of the website contains links to a daily blog, RT video interviews with authors and the newest "Top Picks" in several categories. You never know when you might find the next jewel of an author lurking there.

Check it out! I'd love to hear what you think.

~Michele

Strawberry Hill, the Gothic revival style manor built by Horace Walpole. Walpole authored The Castle of Otranto considered by many to be the first Gothic romance, making Walpole the founder of the genre.