Links and News and Brides on Sale!

First: From the Inbox! Of me!

The Marigold Chain - Stella Riley Back in April 2008, a reader named Eleanor was looking for books from historical romance author Stella Riley.

Well, hold on to your hat of happydance, Eleanor, because I have an email from Ms. Riley:

Some time ago, someone on your website was looking for Stella Riley [ie. me]
whose novels were published in the 80's and 90's. I'm not exactly
recommending a book – well, you can't really when it's your own, can you?

However, I thought some of your followers might like to know that I've begun
preparing my back catalogue for publication as e-books.
'The Marigold Chain', originally published in 1983 but now substantially
revised, went live on Amazon Kindle yesterday.

[There are a couple of glitches with lay-out right at the beginning, but it's OK after that so
don't be put off! It was a first attempt, after all.]

I've started working on 'The Parfit Knight' and hope to get it out by the
beginning of August to be followed, ASAP, by 'The Mesalliance' and, finally,
by 'A Splendid Defiance'.

If you think anyone may be interested, please put the word out for me.
Many thanks

I've emailed to ask if other vendors will be included in her venture, and will let you know. Welcome back, Ms. Riley!

ETA: Regarding availability in other bookstores, Ms. Riley says, “At the moment, I'm tied to Amazon for 90 days on their KDP lending library.  After that, I may try loading on other locations.” 


 

Historical romance author Sophia Nash wrote an article for Huffington Post last month – though I didn't discover it until now, oops – about writing romance during and after divorce. It's very touching and honest.

I know I've heard authors and publishing folks talk about “the divorce book,” the romance an author writes during or immediately after her personal divorce, but I've not seen an author talk about it so candidly:

During one agonizing period right before deadline (which included transatlantic flights with three children), I alternated between answering questions from attorneys and writing the last 75 pages. There was little romance; instead the language was spare and raw and the emotions all-powerful. The hugely independent main characters had to choose between holding fast to their beloved freedom or taking a chance on a different kind of love without boundaries. It was a close call.


There is a fascinating and disheartening article from The Rumpus about the underrepresentation of people of color in publishing, specifically in review publications like The New York Times.

Writer Roxanne Gay says: 

I tasked my amazing, incredibly thorough graduate assistant, Philip Gallagher, with looking at every book review published in the New York Times in 2011, identifying the race and gender of the reviewed titles’ authors. The project took fourteen weeks, with Philip going at it for about sixteen hours each week because the only way to find out the race of each writer was to research them. Information for some authors was more readily available than others. Some information was simply ambiguous. Some information could not be found. We originally set out to look at several major publications but without an army of volunteers, it will never be possible to compile a dataset on race similar to VIDA’s. It is simply too difficult to identify race without a great deal of effort and even then, it’s hard to know just how accurate that data is.

We looked at 742 books reviewed, across all genres. Of those 742, 655 were written by Caucasian authors (1 transgender writer, 437 men, and 217 women). Thirty-one were written by Africans or African Americans (21 men, 10 women), 9 were written by Hispanic authors (8 men, 1 woman), 33 by Asian, Asian-American or South Asian writers (19 men, 14 women), 8 by Middle Eastern writers (5 men, 3 women) and 6 were books written by writers whose racial background we were simply unable to identify.


Sales! On Romances!

If there were an actual brides on sale romance, I would not be surprised in the least. I'm betting a giant sale like the Filene's Basement bridal sale, with the hero as a security guard or the unhappy brother of a bridezilla? This surely has been done, right? Anyway.

It's June, and Avon does all the cute things and puts a bunch of ebooks with the word “bride” in the title on sale. Which do you recommend? I'm eyeing that Edith Layton novel, but I think Edith Layton is the bees' kneesocks.

  • Secrets of a Scandalous Bride by Sophia Nash * $1.99 * A | BN | K | S
  • The Bride Hunt by Margo Maguire * $1.99 * A | BN | K | S
  • At the Bride Hunt Ball by Olivia Parker * $1.99 * A | BN | K | S
  • Kissing the Bride by Sara Bennett * $1.99 * A | BN | K | S
  • Bride Enchanted by Edith Layton * $1.99 * A | BN | K | S
  • His Stolen Bride by Judith Stanton * $1.99 * A | BN | K | S
  • The Bride Price by Anne Mallory * $1.99 * A | BN | K | S
  • The Bride Sale by Candice Hern * $1.99 * A | BN | K | S
  • The Bride Bed by Linda Needham * $1.99 * A | BN | K | S
  • Life After Yes by Aidan Rowley * $2.99 * A | BN | K | S
  • My Favorite Bride by Christina Dodd * $2.99 * A | BN | K | S
  • The Prince's Bride by Victoria Alexander * $2.99 * A | BN | K | S
  • And the Bride Wore Plaid by Karen Hawkins * $2.99 * A | BN | K | S
  • Bride of a Wicked Scotsman by Samantha James * $2.99 * A | BN | K | S
  • Three Times a Bride by Catherine Anderson * $2.99 * A | BN | K | S
  • For Love and Honor by Cathy Maxwell, Lynne Hinton, Candis Terry * $1.99 * A | BN | K | S
Categorized:

The Link-O-Lator

Comments are Closed

  1. Elyssa says:

    I’m so sorry Sophia Nash went through that. šŸ™

    I’d totally recommend picking up the Catherine Anderson book. It’s actually an anthology and contains Loretta Chase’s AMAZING novella “The Mad Earl’s Bride.” If you haven’t read this one yet, you totally need to.

  2. Oaxacamama says:

    I just read that Sophia Nash article and she mentions that the first book she wrote while going through her divorce was Between the Duke and the Deep Blue Sea. I really didn’t like that book for a whole host of reasons, among them the fact that I couldn’t make myself overlook the dozens and dozens of historical inaccuracies and the gigantic plot problems because there was zero chemistry between the hero and heroine. I’m hoping now that the crapiness of the book was a result of her personal turmoil. I say that because that means I can hold out hope that her other books are better.

  3. Flo_over says:

    The NYT article was interesting.  I wonder whether the reviewing was based on “Hey, I like this book/genre!” or more “I must fill a quota!”  I think trying to review a book that isn’t interesting to you personally is going to give a very flat review.  Unless that’s what they are looking for, more coldly analytical than interested. 

    And I totally want to see a romance novel where Say Yes to the Dress is featured.  That show is hysterically awful, especially when all the family is there and grandma mouths off about how fat or whorish the woman looks.  The tears of agony are sweet sweet amusing nectar.

  4. cate says:

    Delighted to hear about Stella Riley….anyone else wishing she’d finally finish her Civil War quartet ( Eden’s story is the one I was desparate for !)?

  5. Andrea says:

    Ugh! I hate geographical restrictions!!!! I was soo happy about this sale and had chosen all the books at ARe and then when I went to check out they told me that the items had been removed because the publisher can’t sell them where I live! So I can buy them as paperbacks here or even as a Kindle ebook but for the “normal” price. GRRRRR!

  6. Joanne says:

    Yay Roxanne Gay for naming and giving credit for the research to her graduate student.

    I’d honestly be more interested in the race/gender of the the NYT reviewers.  It seems like that would have more relevance then data on the authors reviewed.

  7. Rose says:

    I just had the same thing happen to me, but I think this is a problem with ARe – I can get them discounted at amazon, but with the Whispernet fee tacked on, making it pretty much the same as being a regular priced e-book.

    Either way, Avon just lost some sales.

  8. Jessica_HookEm says:

    It’s not on the list, but after pulling an all nighter last night I highly recommend Stephanie Laurens’s Devil’s Bride.  Darn you Stephanie Laurens.  I’m now sleep deprived and trying to study the tax code, and obviously failing if I’m on SBTB.

  9. Karin says:

    That’s such a coincidence; I just bought a used copy of “A Spendid Defiance” on Amazon, based on good reviews and recommendations.

  10. FD says:

    EEEEEE.  The news that I will be able to buy (some) of the Stella Riley backlist as ebooks soon is probably the best piece of book news I’ve had in a while. All year probably!  If only the Black Madonna was on the list. Still, I haven’t even read The Mesalliance, being as I’ve never seen an affordable copy, so I am not repining too much.

  11. Patricia Clift Martin says:

    I really, really hope Stella Riley publishes the Black Madonna on Kindle too. And the final Civil War book. And everything else she wrote. And wrote more books and published them too…what can I say – I’m a fan!

  12. Sophia says:

    OMG I had given up on finding the “Mesalliance” and now it will be possible šŸ˜€ Welcome back Stella Riley!

  13. Caz963 says:

    Just stumbled across this via a google search, and want to add my “YAY!” to welcome back Stella Riley.  I’ve just read The Parfit Knight and loved it.  I am now eagerly awaiting more (and “eagerly awaiting” has to be the understatement of the year!)

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