Webmistress Judie, who is also keeper of the audio book collection, forwarded me an interesting email this morning. It seems that
Recorded Books has teamed up with
Harlequin and is offering new series titles each quarter. Currently available are titles from the Harlequin Romance, Presents, Historical and Silhouette lines. Series titles typically don't circulate well in our library, but we do very well with stand alones, and have some in both print and audio.
So, now it's "True Confessions of a Real Librarian" time. (And no, that is
not the title of an upcoming Harlequin Desire release.) I rarely listen to audio books. I use them only to get through long drives and tedious projects. It requires a really good reader to hold my interest, and even then I will often go to the print version once the long drive or tedious project is done. And here's a deeper, darker secret: my least-favorite-listens are romances. You're shocked, I know. But let's face it, a badly written love scene can be skimmed over in print, but it's hard to start fast forwarding through a CD or MP3 while hurtling along a highway or wielding a paintbrush. There are some very good writers who don't write great love scenes, and having a nicely paced romantic suspense novel degenerate to purple prose can ruin the whole experience. At best, it's an eye roll. At worst, it's screamingly funny.
Never fear, we
will still be getting some romance titles as audio books, but the budget doesn't run to many, and so the Harlequin series package will not be appearing.
This still leaves me with the burning question, patrons and readers: Is romance via earbud good or bad?
The cover story of this month's RT Book Reviews gives us three authors and one dangerous gingerbread cookie. Joanne Fluke, Laura Levine, and Leslie Meier are the cozy mystery authors behind the Gingerbread Cookie Murder anthology, and each contributed a brief cookie related mystery to this issue. Other feature stories include a discussion of the popularity of mysteries featuring long dead authors as amateur sleuths,a look at how favorite fictional families spend the holidays,and a look at medieval mystery author Jeri Westerson's research methods. Dennis Lehane and Kathy Reichs talk about their new work, and the Writing with the Stars contest is launched. The Pros on Prose, Fan Forum,Teen Scene and 252 book reviews round out the issue.
by Alice Gaines cost me all of $4.69, and frankly would have been well worth it even if I'd had to pay the standard $7.99-$9.99 for it. Miss Juliet Foster's unpleasant and immensely wealthy father has just died, leaving Juliet the wealthiest spinster in New York City. (Honestly, the reading of the will alone is worth the price of the book -- it's a scene that's both hilarious and sad.) Juliet decides she's ready for a life of adventure, but it's 1885 and any sort of scandalous behavior will likely inspire her siblings (who were less well provided for in the will) to try to have her committed so they can walk off with her money. So Juliet decides to pack her trunks and take her friend Millie and hop the first ship to Europe, where she will use an assumed name and pass herself off as a widow and take lovers all across the continent. The one wrinkle in her plan is the fact that she's a virgin, and would therefore find it difficult to convince anyone that the widow story is true. What's an enterprising spinster to do? Juliet decides her best plan is to take the visiting Marquis of Derrington as her first lover, and then leave him in New York. She encounters a snag when the handsome and rakish Marquis refuses her advances and proposes marriage instead. It seems he is under a family curse that requires he find a wife as headstrong and eccentric as he is, and he has decided that Juliet fits the bill. The result is a trans-continental romantic caper that is funny, smart and sexy, with likeable leads and an entertaining supporting cast. Should this ever become available in print, I will be buying a copy for the library. In the interim, any historical romance fans with Kindles or compatible devices should definitely acquire a copy!
Historical:
Passion Becomes Her
