Librarian Jessica is looking for the assistance of the Bitchery. She’s writing an article for librarians on Johanna Lindsey, and is looking for books that best capture Lindsey’s style, particularly those you loved or hated the most:
I’m writing (eventually) what librarians call an author readalike, a guide to the author and their appeal to readers. The second part is suggestions for other recommended authors that have a similar reading appeal…. Once I’ve read (or reread) several of her books and I can say more of what makes reading JL a unique experience, then I will want to identify 4-6 more authors who have some of the same appeals.
Can you believe it’s been so long since I’ve read Lindsey, I have to go dig through my bookshelf to find at least one title that I really adored? How embarrassing. And I call myself a romance blogger. What about you? What’s your most-loved or most-hated Lindsey, and what would you recommend for Librarian Jessica?
I don’t remember the Jude Devereaux and Julie Garwood books having the “forced seduction” theme so prevalent in Lindsey books.
Can someone please point me to the Ilona Andrews comments on this issue?
Call me crazy, but my favorite Lindsey book is not one of her classics. I loved The Heir because the relationship between the hero and heroine was so different. He was handsome, but incredibly shy, and they started out as good friends instead of adversaries.
I agree with everyone who has recommended Jude Devereaux, Julie Garwood, and Stephanie Laurens. Those people who like family series might like Kasey Michael’s series about the Becketts of Romney Marsh, though I got bored with them about halfway through.
I enjoyed many of her Mallory novels, but Warriors Woman pissed me off so much I threw it across the room and vowed never to buy her novels again. It was a very dramatic moment for me, but I’ve stuck to that promise for ten years. The man punishing the woman with sex just sickened me.
My very first romance novel was Hearts Aflame, so that remains one of my top favorite romances. I also loved: Heart of a Warrior, You Belong to Me, Surrender My Love and A Heart So Wild.
My least favorite book of JL is also one of my least favorite of all time: A Pirate’s Love. That book grated my nerves so desperately bad.
I also think Shirlee Busbee’s old stuff is like JL. Although I think JL stuff is much lighter to read.
ooh, I just dumped half of my Lindseys on my local library because I didn’t like them anymore. The ones I kept (because I love them horribly) were Savage Thunder, Fires of Winter, Tender is the Storm, A Heart so Wild, Secret Fire and my particular favourites: Warrior’s Woman (so funny and defying the laws of phsyics, and they are both gloriously stupid) and Once a Princess. (and some more but I forget the titles)
I really hate the Mallory series, they all suck. Most of the sequels suck, too. Warrior’s Woman sequels? – kill it with fire.
If I were into literary critique, I’d say that Lindsey has changed her style over the years. So we probably should divide her work into several phases or genres and then name typical examples.
I loved Love Me Forever and Say You Love Me . . . there was something so much fun about the Scottish hero who falls in love with the “plain” heiress, and the heroine who gets auctioned off in the gambling hall.
Holly, your first book sounds like Woodiwiss’ “Ashes in the Wind.”
Loved me some JL when I was in high school. Cracktastic. The first three Mallory books and Once a Princess were my faves. I’ve tried to read some of her newer stuff, but it’s just not working for me. I enjoyed Warrior’s Woman, but I think her computer was my favorite character. Yeah, the world-building wouldn’t stand up to current efforts, but at the time, that was fresh and edgy for those of us who were all about the Harlequins and historicals.
Warrior’s Woman, Keeper of the Heart and Heart of the Warrior are the only ones of hers I have ever enjoyed.
I think that’s a really good point.
I would also suggest the old Elizabeth Lowell historicals for similar reading, in addition to the previously mentioned Catherine Coulter (especially Rosehaven!) Jude Deveraux and Julie Garwood.
I read them when they were released and hated them. I reread them in the past 8 years because people kept praising them and hated them more. The hate, it grows! But it proves that people get kicks out of different things, and that’s fabulous, because it means there’s always new kicks to try :).
Once a princess was always one of my favorites, though I haven’t read it in years. For a relatively early JL novel, the heroine was pretty kick ass, if I recall.
MARRIAGE MOST SCANDALOUS!!! best Lindsey ever. especially that scene where they are pretending they are a couple, but in order to get out of being put in the same bedroom (this is the Victorian era after all) they pretend to have a fight. they get seperate rooms, she goes to take a bath, and he shows up halfway through. when she asks why he’s there because “we had a fight!” he claims that now they are going to make up. omgosh no hero compares to him.
oh, and i can’t remember the name of the pirate one, I’m sure everyone has read it. his name is Tristan, she is Bettina I think. it’s just rape after rape! and she falls for this? wtf mate?
holly: The Viking-daddy-rapes-mommy-tries-to-rape-daughter is definitely not JL! The closest JL comes to that is in Prisoner of My Desire where the hero pretty much ignores his oldest (illegitimate) daughter because he is embarrassed by the fact that when he first saw her in the village (not knowing she was his daughter) he asked her to be his leman.
That scenario happens in Avalon, by Anya Seton. For all I know it happens in many other books too, but I read this one when I was, like, eleven, and it made quite an impression. It has skanky villainness sex and everything.
The Viking daddy is sweet, in a weird way.
Johanna Lindsey is one of my all time favorites, right up there with Jude Devereaux and Kathleen Woodiwiss… Speaking of, I’m POSITIVE that holly is thinking of “Ashes in the Wind” with that post-civil war story.
I love the Mallory series, particularly James and Tony’s stories, but my all-time, hands down winner is “Magic of You”, because I just adore Amy, the heroine. Warren didn’t sound particularly lovable for my own taste, but she knew what she wanted, and boy did she pursue it! The dialogue is witty, the action is fast-paced, and they are just FUN!
definitely “Angel”. One of the faves.
HEARTS AFLAME was my first romance novel. For years I would only buy Lindsays because I knew I was going to get a “satisfactory” read from them (whereas I’d tried to read others and failed). Then I branched out ot amanda Quick and the rest is history.
HA remains one of my favorites, but my very favorite is ONCE A PRINCESS. My critique partner and I both have a hidden obsession with scarred (literally) characters that we can trace to this book. Oh, and secret identifying tattoos! And made up russian mountain countries. And Louisiana exotic dancers.
“Love Me Forever” has a special place in my heart because the heroine looks and acts like me (tall and awkward). I also love the scene where she’s holding his hair while he pukes after getting hammered the previous night – I have a thing for hard-drinking punk rocker guys, and I’ve babysat a few wasted, chunk-blowing hotties in my time. Nothing says “lurve” like tender ministrations whilst he’s bent over the chamber pot, lemme tell ya.
As soon as the first person said it was Woodiwiss, I remembered that Ashes was in the title. I remember a few other Woodiwisses – I don’t think I could read her today.
Ok, I remember more about the Viking book now – I want to say the heroine has a sword on the cover – not holding it, more like it’s stuck in the ground and she’s got the hilt, maybe? – and there’s a bitch who’s always had the hots for the hero, and she says something that freaks out the heroine, who runs away crying – and the hero finds out and is all “hmm..she never cries. She swears she never cries. Why…it must be lurve! she lurrves me!” or something like that – AND I think there’s a trusted retainer who goes to the Land O Vikings with the heroine and ends up marrying the daddy or some other older Viking, and the hero and heroine are married in a pagan wedding but she just knows they’ll have a Christian one someday.
Isn’t it amazing the stuff you can recall from these books when you get to thinking on it? We’re talking 20 years at least, cause I read this stuff in high school and (maybe) college. Wish I remembered other stuff that well.
Okay, after all the great suggestions this morning I went to my public library and raided the paperback romance collection. I now have 8 JL books for this weekend and 8 coming from other libraries that will be next weekend’s reading.
I’m particularly excited to read the Warrior one and Captive of my Desires since there seems to be an equal split between lovers and haters.
Thanks so much for all your suggestions for JL titles to read and authors who write like her. I’ve gotten some great ideas and now I’m all inspired to write my article. If the editors will let me I’ll thank the Bitches and let you all know when its available.
“america loves lindsay” and so do i!
hands down my favourite is “man of my dreams”, and then “prisoner of my desire.”
My favorite Lindsey is A Heart So Wild. It was my first and will always hold a special place on my bookshelf. Second place goes to Gentle Rogue just because it made me laugh out loud (in a good way) so many times. My least favorites include A Pirate’s Love and Secret Fire. Both of which, made my skin crawl at the time. The whole forced seduction *coughcoughrape* and kidnapping thing just doesn’t do it for me. Oh, and any of her books that feature the “secret baby twins.”
Speaking of secret baby twins: Nat, I think the book you are looking for is Tender is the Storm.
Actually that must be a popular scenario because the same thing happens in the Johanna Lindsey novel – Fires of Winter.
My first JL novel was Prisoner of Desire. I was in the 8th grade and my entire class read the book because we wanted to see a woman “rape” a man. Several years back I got a whole bunch of JL novels from a friend and happily took them.
I can’t think of any I loved. However, there a few that I really detested- such as Fires of Winter. I hated that book with a passion that I thought could not be surpassed until I foolishly read another JL novel: A Pirate’s Love. I tried to give JL a last chance with Paradise Wild however by then I’d had my fill of manipulative conniving heroines and truly mean-spiritied cruel rapists er…heroes.
Lindsey’s Malory series is awesome: the new and the old.
ding ding ding ding din! Fires of Winter…that’s the one – and I’m obviously conflating it with another, less well remembered Viking novel b/c the heroine in FOW is intended as a bride for the hero, she’s not a Viking marauder’s daughter.
Oh well. I don’t think I’m going to reread them. I just never developed a taste for the super-dramatic, multi-multi plotline windswept sagas of the 80s romance novels; now I pretty much stick to paranormals and Regencies, with the occasional contemporary. Lately I’ve had a hankering to try Linda Howard and maybe one of the new, anti-hero/anti-heroine novels the Bitches have favorably reviewed.
I’m writing a paranormal. Bet you anything that by the time I finish it, no one will be reading paranormals anymore.
Angel is my favorite. I’ve read it so many times. It’s the only Lindsey I’ve kept, but I’ve read all but the two newest ones, I think.
I’ve only read two Lindsey’s, Savage Thunder (that’s the one with ‘insolvent’ Hank Chavez, right?) and Gentle Rogue. I didn’t care much Gentle Rogue even though everybody seems to love it and considers it one of her best. It took me a while to read it, and her brothers annoyed me so much. I also found James a bit too hard to take at some points, too. I did love Savage Thunder. Samantha was awesome, especially after she shot that guy in the beginning. Plus, I love when the couple has a kid during the story. (I may be the only one, lol.)
I’ve mostly read Lindsey’s Malory series. I don’t really like Lindsey’s books…but if I have to pick a favorite…..My favorite used to be Gentle Rogue (James’s story), however when I read it recently, I was disappointed to find out that I dislike now. Now I just find him overbearing and condescending and I think Georgina could be a bit more resistant. Now my ‘favorite’ is Love Only Once (Regina’s book)- Nicholas is a moron and a jerk- but I can bear that better than a guy who is overbearing and act like a know-it-all. And Regina is a kick-ass heroine who didn’t mope around when Nick was being a jerk- she just went ‘well that sucks’ and got on with life.
All of the other Lindsey books I read were sort of forgettable.
Stef: Savage Thunder is about Jocelyn Fleming and Colt Thunder. You’re thinking of Heart of Thunder.
I really love the Mallory series except for the newer titles. The Magic of You is my favorite of those books. I really loved Amy because she goes for what she wants.
I did not like A Pirate’s Love at all, I actually hated it and barely made it through.
Heart of Thunder! Thanks rm! That explains the heart on the cover I of the copy I read.
Johanna Lindsey and Kathleen Woodiwiss were among the first romance novels I ever read and I loved them. But since I read them such a long time ago (and mostly in German) I cannot add any titles to the list (or recognise any you guys mention, for that matter). I only remember that I especially liked the one playing on a foreign planet, with a heroine called Tedra.
What I would like to know (since I get confused between the german and the original titles) is, how many books has Johanna Lindsey actually written (meaning how many have I missed out on?) – Amazon.uk lists 425 entries for her, but there are a lot of titles listed more then once.
Once a Princess was my first and favourite JL. It was one of my first historicals, read it at about 13. Something about the fantasy of being rescued from a dreary life and becoming a princess appealed to my teenage self. Go figure.
Didn’t like the Viking ones, too violent and too much rape.
Try here for a list of titles.
http://www.fantasticfiction.co.uk/l/johanna-lindsey/
I used to LOVE Johanna Lindsey. I bet if I re-read those books today I’d be offended but when I was a young girl I devoured them. My favorites were:
Warrior’s Woman
Hearts Aflame
Secret Fire
Fires of Winter
Warrior’s Woman was my absolute favorite because it was sci-fi and romance all mixed together. I know some people detest the book but I loved the unusual world in which she created her love story. Plus the sassy talking computer made me laugh.
It’s funny to me how many people stated they loved the book when they were young but now they’d be offended by it. You know, it speaks highly of women in general that many of us read the rape/kidnapping/forced love stories and still went on to be functioning members of society, with healthy relationships and a complete understanding that sex and violence don’t have to go together. It’s almost like we were smart enough to handle books that push boundaries about sex and love (and even decency), that we absorbed a love of romance and intrigue and passion and we disregarded the ideas of submission and rape as the only outlets for our frustrated libidos. It makes me rethink my hatred of the Twilight books. I viewed them as offensive and bad for teen girls, but then I think about my own experiences with romance novels and… well I came out alright.
My all time fave, and I don’t think I saw it listed here, is Man on My Dreams. I bought it for 2 reasons. It was a Lindsey, and I have a thing for HAVING to have all the books by authors I like (thanks for putting me in the poorhouse, Nora!). I also had sweaty dreams for the Fabio-likeness on the cover. I never thought much of the blonde Fabios, but that black-haired one was the cat’s ass!
(Spoiler Ahead, if you are interested)
That said, I really haven’t felt the love with her newer novels…about the last 10 years worth. I dislike having them come out in hardcover when they (IMHO…I realize that not everyone feels this way…) have scarcely seemed worth the price of paperback. It seems to me as though she has a book due to the publisher in, say, October, and quick pumps something out on September 20th, and says, “Here ya go, guys!” Her late 70’s books really don’t read well today, either. Paradise Wild is idiotic, and I hate the sheroe in it. Same goes for Captive Bride. Naming the kid Philip Junior and then telling Philip (the dad) that the child isn’t his??? How many guys named Philip did you swap DNA with?
I was very disappointed in Johanna Lindsey’s Keeper of the Heart. It was horribly sexist. How the men talked to and the treated the women was barbaric. Why do her novels have to have rape and beatings and abusive men? That is NOT sexy!