March 14, 2007 | Wednesday at 12:01 am | 39 Comments
(Yes, I know this review is late. But look! It’s almost Easter, and the vernal equinox is upon us. How hard can it be to swap one Pagan-celebration-disguised-as-Christian-mythology for another, eh?)
Short stories are difficult, but romance short stories are well-nigh impossible. In the space of twenty-five to thirty-five thousand words, the author has to show us a couple falling in love, come up with a conflict, resolve the conflict and lead us to happily-ever-after—and make it all believable.
The sticking point is really the process of falling in love. It’s difficult enough for authors to convince me over the space of 380 pages that the characters are not in any danger of slapping restraining orders on each other or appearing on the next episode of COPS. Having to pull off the same feat in the space of 100 or so pages? That’s like the kid’s joke about fitting an elephant into a refrigerator. You open the door, put the elephant in and close the door, but have you actually tried doing this? It’s difficult to do without squashing everything into an unrecognizable glob, including the…
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March 21, 2006 | Tuesday at 9:34 pm | 58 Comments
If you’re curious about the various paranormal schticks that are popular right now in Romancelandia, Hot Spell offers a taste of some of the sub-genres. You have your SF/steampunk (Emma Holly’s “The Countess’s Pleasure”), your squicky uh-I-think-that-might-verge-on-bestiality human/animal chimera (“The Breed Next Door” by Lora Leigh), angels and demons (“Falling for Anthony” by Meljean Brook) and vampires and werewolves (“The Blood Kiss” by Shiloh Walker). Lots and lots of rampant inter-species lovin’, yo. *suppresses urge to make joke that invokes Barnyard Sluts Vol. IX* Unfortunately, the two decently entertaining stories in this anthology can’t make up for the one gawdawful story, or the other one which is pretty much just a snooze.
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