dear isobel

I’ve had this idea in my head for ages but I finally decided to give it ago. I’m really pleased with how this blog worked out as I’ve never customized a Wordpress theme to this extent. I took the basic coding and css and rewrote it so it worked a little more. I still have to get it to validate but that’s another project for another day. But the layout used to be in a table, so I took it and put it into divs and then I played with it to make it widget ready. I’m so happy I was able to make that work.

It’s a blog for romance novels — for release dates, fanlistings, and reviews and whatever else I can think of to add to the site. There isn’t a lot there yet, it’s a work in progress but I’ll continue to add entries over the next few days.

RomanceFan.Org

I read like some people breathe. When I get my hands on the family digital camera, I’ll take photos of the two full book cases and the three shelves of books in my room alone so you might get an idea of how much I read. My favorite two genres are romance and history. The following are the authors I read in alphabetical order:

Liz Carlyle: Her novels are incredibly moody and tend to be very dark. They’ve dealt with themes I’ve rarely found in romance novels such as incest and adultery (the latter is found more than the former but Carlyle has a special way of making it very fresh). My favorite thing about her books is that they are all connected, mostly through her character of George Kemble whom I believe appeared in every single novel from My False Heart to Never Deceive a Duke.

Jennifer Crusie: I don’t think I can describe quite how much I love Jennifer Crusie. Her novels are fast-paced, with quick wit and the most fabulous dialogue I’ve ever read. I’ll buy anything she writes, no matter how old and she writes one of the best author blogs I’ve ever read. She’s incredible. Welcome to Temptation and Faking It are my two favorite novels. Her secondary characters are almost as awesome as her main characters and she pays such awesome attention to detail. Her partnership with Bob Mayer gave me Agnes and the Hitman, which was just…there are no words.

Suzanne Enoch: I adore her. She writes one the best contemporary series I’ve ever read — the Samantha Jellicoe books. They’re so much fun and I usually have them on preorder. They’re sincerely my favorite contemporary set of books. Her historical books are also incredible. I definitely recommend.

Lisa Kleypas: Her books are always unique, which is so refreshing to read in the regency genre.  I enjoy each and every one of them, but hands down I think the Wallflower quartet she published recently is my favorite out of her books. Devil in Winter has one of my favorite pairings of Evie and Sebastian. I’m in love with them. Her new contemporary Sugar Daddy was spectacular. As soon as it’s sequel ends up in paperback, I’ll picking it up.

Stephanie Laurens: I have weird relationship with my Stephanie Laurens books. She was one of the first historical romance authors I discovered and I get all of her books when they come out (if my budget calls for it) but I don’t reread them as often as I do my other books. When I get in a mood, I could go through all of my Crusies and my Quinns and my Roberts books, but Stephanie Laurens’s heroes tend to be similiar so I never really get back into the books as much as I do through the first reading. She makes the list though because I do enjoy her plots. They’re always very cool to read.

Cathy Maxwell: One my recent finds. She was an author featured in a few anthologies I picked up and I enjoyed her small features enough to pick up one of her novels. After reading Temptation of a Proper Governess, I simply had to continue reading and I devoured her collection thanks to BooksFree, which allowed me to read very fast and get another book the next week.

Susan Elizabeth Phillips: A very recent addition to my list of favorites. I had heard quite a bit about her Chicago Stars series and Dream A Little Dream was on sale at my local CVS pharmacy so I picked it up. About five seconds after I had finished the book, I went to Ereader and I think I have her entire collection in ebooks now. I could reread her novels over and over (and I honestly do) and never get bored. I never thought I’d like football stars as my romantic heroes, but well, I was proved wrong.
Julia Quinn: She’s been called the modern day Jane Austen and I can’t really disagree. When I got my first job and had my own money to finally spend on my book collection, I bought a copy of To Sir Phillip, With Love. As I was reading it, I realized I had to find Anthony’s book. And Colin’s. I immediately went out and stocked up on more. When I checked out the Julia Quinn books on Amazon recently for the fanlisting I have, all my purchases of JQ books are in March 2005. I literally bought her entire catalog in about a month, heh. She’s got an incredible sense of dialogue, which is my favorite part. I always felt dialogue was my strongest part in my own writing, so I love when I find an author who has great snappy dialogue. Crusie has an awesome sense of dialogue as well.

Nora Roberts: I think she’s at the top of everyone’s lists or at least in the top ten. She’s incredibly prolific, her books never feel the same to me and I buy everything she writes as soon as I can get my hands on them. That goes for her JD Robb series “In Death” as well.

Honorable Mentions: Karen Ranney, Karen Hawkins, Eloisa James, Amanda Quick/Jayne Ann Krentz, Catherine Anderson and Victoria Alexander.

I realized tonight that Catherine Anderson’s newest novel, Morning Light, was released earlier this month. Usually, I’m more on top of releases from my favorite authors but I missed this one. I was looking at the reviews on Amazon and a lot of them were very critical of the book, even people who said that they were fans of the author.

I usually don’t allow reviews to influence me on my book purchases a lot. I usually find that when I enjoy the author, nine times out of ten, I will find each new book enjoyable. I can only think of a few exceptions where I can’t read all the books by an author (Johanna Lindsey is just someone who I only buy on the bargain rack and maybe not even then) but that’s changed a little in the last year as I started to cut back on my book purchases because I have way too many (I’m at just under 700 in my bedroom alone and it’s not that big of a room).

When Nora Roberts published High Noon over the summer, I didn’t rush out right away to buy it. Usually, I have her books on pre-order, but I read an somewhat unfavorable review in Entertainment Weekly and it made me pause for a moment. It was going to be a somewhat more expensive purchase than the usual $7 (in hardback at Barnes and Noble, it would run about $18 with my discount) so I decided that unless I had some extra money later that I would either take it from the library or wait for the paperback.

I was eventually given a gift card and it was at the top of my list to buy. I thought it was one of the strongest standalone novels she’s published in a few years and now I think the review was probably from someone who isn’t a romance novel addict like myself and the core of Nora’s fanbase so in my head, a review from Entertainment Weekly was a lot easier to discard so I could purchase the book anyway.

But the reviews for the new Catherine Anderson are less easier to ignore because they come from people who’ve devoured every previous novel, who like me, probably have her books on a easy to each bookshelf (not hidden or easily found spot like my Lindsey novels) so I can grab one for a reread at a convenience. I’m on a budget for my books these days and I’m not sure if I want to use the $10 for a book that was so poorly received by her own fans.

Then again, it’s only one source  of reviews. Maybe there’s another place where fans have fallen in love with it. I guess I just have to read the reviews thoroughly, see what they have in common and see if it’s something that might effect my enjoyment.

I think reviews are an important thing to consider when purchasing most things — sofware, computers, electronics and cars but when it comes to subjective forms of entertainment like movies, books, television and music, I think it’s really hard to say what may or may not be enjoyable for someone because someone else may love it. You can only list a software’s functions so many different ways, but how a book effects you? I don’t know. I do think I’m going to wait a little longer to buy it and look it into something else this month.

I hope I’m wrong and that the book is fabulous because she really is an author I enjoy and turn to in my moments of boredom.

Well, the holidays were all right, if you ignore the family drama that seemed to find itself in the middle of every conversation. My cousin came over and she and my aunt were arguing about whatever (as my uncle Gus said, “about the sun rising, the sun setting”) and I guess everyone’s really worried about Danielle, because she’s working her ass off and her boyfriend isn’t working — he got laid off the same time I lost my job–and Danielle’s eating diet pills like candy and drinking a lot. She looked like shit on Christmas, so I don’t know what’s going to happen there.

And the drama just got worse from there. My mother didn’t want to go to my father’s sister-in-law because she doesn’t like her. (Dude, my uncle is dead and his four-year-old daughter who is growing up without him should be everyone’s priority, but apparently the adults in my family are babies themselves). My aunt Bea decided to get into everyone’s business (shocker) and started in about Meg, my brother’s girlfriend who pretty much lives with us. She said Meg was rude and not saying hi, and I flipped on her. Of course Meg isn’t going to say anything — every time she opens her mouth, my aunt says something rude, inapproriate and it’s always about something that’s not of her business–which is exactly what I told her. Oh what fun.

So, yes, the holidays were okay in most respects but I could really do without the teen-style drama. I can watch Gossip Girl for that and at least get cute guys in the mix.

I headed out today to return and exchange stuff that didn’t fit and hit the bookstore for yet another script book. It’s another PHP/MySQL book, but it’s set up differently than PHP and MySQL for Dummies so I hope between the two, I can start to grasp the language better than I had before. I thought about picking up one of the CSS books, but I figure I’ll save that. I’m passable at CSS, enough at least for my own satisfaction right now so I really want to concentrate on PHP/MySQL. You get tired of trying to find scripts to do what you want your site to do. It’d be so much easier to just write it myself so I know I’ll get what I need.

I should head to bed — have to get up early and clean out my room so my father can put together my new desk (with tons of shelving and storage, whee!) and bring up the mattress I got for Christmas. My room’s going to look fabulous when it’s done, I’m so excited.