All tagged Sarah MacLean

Listorama: 11 Romance Novels for Clever Ladies

Listorama: 11 Romance Novels for Clever Ladies

Sarah Moon
Books, Listorama, Greatest Hits

Recently, The Mary Sue--a website I have deeply conflicted feelings about--posted a super-ignorant, click-bait-y piece about romance novels and romance readers.

Rather than rebut the silliness (because what's the point), I thought I'd offer some recommendations for clever ladies looking to try out the genre, want to try a new subgenre of Romance or who want to revisit it after an absence. I'm not an expert, but I've read reasonable widely in the genre and appreciate that it is, in many ways, a deeply feminist field of offerings, particularly in recent years. 

The following are 11 smart big-R romances (read: happy ending of a central love story, as defined by the Romance Writers Association) I recommend for Clever Ladies who are interested in the genre. Keep in mind that there's just about something for everyone in this genre, so if there's not something that's up your alley on this list, there's probably something out there--leave a note in the comments and I'll see what I can do. 

Recommendation Roundup: Winter/Spring 2014-15

Recommendation Roundup: Winter/Spring 2014-15

Sarah Moon
Books, Recommendation Roundup

Well, I got a bit behind on, like, life, so I thought I'd bundle a few months of our recommended reads for you, rather than trying to catch up month-by-month. 

I did a bit of re-reading over the last few months, which has been pretty fun. I think I will continue to revisit my favorites as a matter of course, because there's something enjoyable in revisiting a beloved story. We all read The Carnival at Bray for book club right before it was a Printz honoree and we all loved it so much, so if you haven't snagged that brilliant little book, do so!

As always, click on the cover for more information. If we have a review available, it will be noted.

Listorama: 10 Favorite Fictional Couples

Listorama: 10 Favorite Fictional Couples

Sarah Moon
Books, Listorama

It’s been ages since I’ve posted one of my beloved “List-o-Rama” posts, and I can’t for the life of me recall why I quite creating them. In honor of Valentine’s Day, I thought I’d revitalize Listorama and bring a few of my favorite fictional couples.

Some of these are from straight up romances, while others are from novels with significant or memorable romantic elements. No worries, though, all of these picks have either a happy ever after or a happy for now ends--no one gets hit by a bus at the end in an attempt to make the novel appear to have more literary significance. 

Recommendation Roundup: Oct. 2014

Recommendation Roundup: Oct. 2014

Sarah Moon
Books, Recommendation Roundup

We're back with our monthly roundup of recommended reads!

My picks this month really demonstrate my weird, er, eclectic taste, I think. I'm recovering from a killer month, schedule-wise, so I'm hoping to get in some more writing about some of these books, because I read some interesting ones in October. 

Recommendation Roundup: July 2014

Recommendation Roundup: July 2014

Sarah Moon
Recommendation Roundup

Better late than never, right? I had a staggeringly good reading month, which included a couple of much-anticipated surprise sequels: Just Call My Name and Sinner. 

I also finally read Chuck Wendig's Under the Empyrean and and am retroactively mad that I waited so long to get to it--I'm currently listening to the audio of the sequel and it's even better, if you can believe that. I've been hitting my local library (have I ever mentioned that my house is on the same street as the library?) pretty hard and discovered a fun older Meg Cabot novel that's a great example of the epistolary format, if that's your jam, Boy Meets Girl. 

In other news, Sandra finally fixed her enormous oversight in never having read A Northern Light, and has rave after rave for the new Michael Koryta novel, Those Who Wish Me dead. And, Laura listened to the fabulous audio edition of The Coldest Girl in Coldtown--be sure to snag that if you're an audiobooker. 

Onward to the recommendations!

 

Big-Ass (Belated) 2014 Summer Reading List

Big-Ass (Belated) 2014 Summer Reading List

Sarah Moon
Books, Listorama

I started writing this post in May. Oops.

I always like to put together a highly-aspirational list of the books I'd like to read over the summer. My schedule is a bit more flexible, in theory, and so I hope for chunks of time to read. I don't really think there's a particular type of book that makes a "summer read," though I know for a lot of folks that's not the case. 

My list of 20 books (I'm so not getting to all of these--let me know if you've read any of them so I can prioritize) and my comments are below. 

Click on the book cover image for more info.

Smart & Satisfying: No Good Duke Goes Unpunished by Sarah Maclean

Smart & Satisfying: No Good Duke Goes Unpunished by Sarah Maclean

Sarah Moon
Books

Or, in which Sarah reads a historical romance... and actually likes it!

My complicated relationship with historical fiction has been well-documented on this blog at this point, I believe. Despite that I'm a colossal history nerd, I just have the hardest time finding historical fiction that works for me--as a novel-lover and a history dork, I find that the balance rarely hits the right notes. 

Historical romance is even a harder genre for me. I'm an extremely picky romance reader as it is, and the settings (Regency England, primarily) and class issues (nearly exclusively featuring the titled classes) just don't appeal to me, and neither do the gender dynamics (power, female virginity obsession, etc.) endemic to the time periods popular in historical romance. 

However, I also try to keep an open mind and when so many people with excellent taste rave about an author, I'll give one of their books a shot, even if it's something I would normally shy away from. 

Such is the case of Sarah Maclean's No Good Duke Goes Unpunished, which surprised me with its awesomeness. 

Noelle vs. The Embarrassing Book Covers

Noelle
Opinion

[Editor’s note: Noelle shares with us her story about a fight many a reader has had—to read or not to read books with “those covers.” You know what I’m talking about.]

Round One: Scorn

I have always been a book lover.

I have always been a fan of awesome.

But unfortunately, I haven’t always been so open-minded about certain genres—-especially those with questionable cover designs. Nowadays, I usually subscribe to the Stephon Marbury philosophy that [book] love is [book] love but only a few short years ago, I was that girl side-eyeing your selections in the Barnes & Noble checkout line, rolling my eyes at the ratio of abs to cover space and assuring anyone who would listen that I didn’t read those kind of books.

That is, until I did…

Round Two: Begrudging Curiosity

One of my college roommates was what I affectionately refer to as a Romance Shark. She was unabashedly addicted to romance novels of all kinds and had a multi-state swap network set up with her extended family. I held out for as long as I could but browsing her bookshelves and observing what she was reading was inevitable. 

Slowly but surely, I succumbed to curiosity. After more than a few books were “accidentally” left on the coffee table, my snarking evolved from catcalls at the shirtless dudes on the cover to,

Wait—so he’s a time traveling highlander?

 

and

What’s an urban fantasy?

 

The Romance Shark immediately sensed a weakness in my defenses—-blood in the water, if you will—-and dared me to read one—just one—of those books. 

And, crap… I liked it.