In this week’s podcast episode, we’re looking at the book reviews for the June 2014 issue of Romantic Times, aka RT Book Reviews.
Ready for an absolute mile and a half of cover art?
I am! Let’s do this!
You can also find all the RTRW content at our category page for Romantic Times Rewind.
And, most importantly, if you want to listen and follow along with this entry, we have more detail in the audio, but you can click play and listen and read and absorb all the visual goodness:
Let’s start with the cover:
We’ll get more into the twee imagery in the Ads & Features episode.
Amanda and I also chatted about who would be on the cover of RT magazine if the magazine were still in print? What authors would be featured on the front today?
Historical
Amanda wanted to discuss how these two reviews use very similar structure and language:
As we’ve discussed, most of the time the reviews do not show the book cover, so it’s always a surprise to see the covers when I’m editing. Remember these cover trends? The “show the heroine but only from the nose down” style was quite the fashion!
Meanwhile, I looked at the sequel to my earlier historical pick:
Aw, the heroine accidentally wrote Real People Fic?
Or, was it more that she described a historical romance hero, and they’re all very similar so Ross totally thought it was him?
Mainstream Fiction
We had a lot more two-star reviews in this issue, and especially in mainstream fiction, where the cover trend of “beaches, feet, and lowercase letters” continues. ‘
The reviews are really interesting to us, especially the concluding sentences that contradict the rest of the review text.
Teen Scene
Fire demons in detention! Unfortunate demon stereotypes? And Mucho Drama!
Seriously, teenagers can easily handle a fire demons.
Science Fiction and Fantasy
In this section, we talked about Emmi Itäranta’s Memory of Water, which is about climate change in a world where the military controls all the sources of fresh water. Check out the cover:
This was book five, and the final book in a series, and the reviewer is saying to start with the last book, it’s all good:
Mad lad indeed!
Mystery, Suspense & Thriller
We talked about:
and this one, which had a big ol’ nothingburger of a review:
This is the review:
Very bland text for a book that gets four stars?! Which per their rubric, printed at the top of the page:
Four stars: Compelling! A page-turner!
We are confused.
Inspirational
Now this section was indeed a wild ride.
The summary is gold. I’d give the summary 4.5 stars TP-GOLD.
Obsessed with boilers.
And then, we learn all about cattle fraud thanks to this book:
The review begins “Claire is a strong female read.”
K.
Romantic Suspense
Five total books in this section. Five.
We still aren’t sure what the person on this cover is…wearing? Wrapped up in?
And we’ll be talking about the cover for Kat Martin’s Against the Wild in the next episode in depth.
Contemporary Romance
Would you buy a book that is reviewed with the phrase, “strong, sweaty and lusty sex scenes,” followed by the idea that said love scenes will “make the readers sweat?”
They don’t look sweaty?
Paranormal Romance
I didn’t have much to say about Air Bound by Christine Feehan except that the heroine, an air elemental, is named AIRiana.
But we also have a Viking Vampire Angel Navy SEAL book1!!!11!!
That’s Mordr.
Urban Fantasy
What is the political infrastructure of a demon-based society? What is included in waxing magic?
And look!! It’s the last Merry Gentry book!
I also talk about The Given:
Series Romance
Surprise, he’s a NERD!!
And also surprise, this hero is a former NBA-star turned fire department captain!
Erotic Romance
So many two star reviews this month. June 2014 also marks the release of Sweet Filthy Boy a book Amanda loves.
I was struck by the duology that combines Megan Hart and Sarah Morgan? Those seem like very different writers to me!
And Amanda disliked the slut shaming in the review for this book:
And that’s the last of the books we discussed as we read all the reviews in this issue.
Our next episode will examine the advertisements and features in this issue, and that’ll air on November 17. And remember, if you join the Patreon, you’ll get access to the entire issue as a PDF.
What do you think? Have you read any of these? Which would you recommend?
And are you obsessed with boilers?
I am not obsessed with boilers (nor with boils).
Still having issues reading posts on the site as the pages continue to freeze mid-read and mid-comment. Sigh. (I read on a Kindle Fire.)
I haven’t read any of them, but my grudge against Laurel K. Hamilton for the way she ruined the Anita Blake series (and her online lecture to her critical fans, who were “obviously just a bunch of prudes who couldn’t appreciate Her Art”) persists. The woman is not the greatest author ever, she needs an editor SO BADLY, and her 700-page books need a whole lot more PLOT, not just copy/paste sex scenes and stupid relationship drama with her Blatantly Obvious Mary Sue main character. I dumped the series after “Bullet” because I just couldn’t stand how bad they’d gotten, and that was generous, considering the dumpster fire that was the novella “Flirt”.
I subscribed to RT Book Reviews for several years just before they ceased publication in print. I seem to remember they went to digital only for their last few years of publication. After that, I cancelled my subscription, because it just wasn’t as enjoyable to read online.