RRA: Meeting 1

After the rousing success of my Romance Readers Anonymous post two weeks ago, I thought I'd do a series of occasional postings on what I'm reading and what you all suggested. For those who are not inclined to stay up until wee, bloodshot hours of the morning to find out how Lady Whoever is going to overcome X obstacle to marry the Earl of Blackacre, probably having really good sex either immediately before or after she becomes the Countess of Blackacre and then lives happily ever after with her husband who constantly tells her how much he loves her, well, you can skip the "RRA" posts. (Though you really shouldn't because most of the books, or at least most of the books that I like, go far beyond that basic plot line and are fun and witty and a fabulous way to spend an hour or two in the evening.)

After my last post, I made a list of authors you recommended who I hadn't read before.  Some are romance, some aren't, and I haven't had a chance to look up many of them, so I may have a few misspellings:

• Georgette Heyer
• Christopher Paolini (I've read his Eldest series, they're good, though not romance, and I don't think I've read the more recent ones)
• Jean Auel - Clan of the Cave Bear (I read these many years ago, also good, I need to revisit)
• Sophie Kinsella
• Sarah Maclean
• Marole Nelson Dougles
• Erin McCartney
• Susan Elizabeth Phillips
• Rachel Gibson
• Sabrina Jeffries
• Olivia Parker
• C.S. Harris
• Nora Roberts (LOVE her Magic Circle series, I've read each book at least 6 times; her Sign of 7 series has also been recommended to me; I'm not big on her more current mystery type books- I read one about a serial killer stalking small children and had nightmares for weeks)
• Sally MacKenzies
• Jessica Verday
• Adriana Trigiani
• Eloisa James
• Lisa Kleypas
• Mary Balogh
• Edith Layton
• Mary Stewart
• Judith McNaught
• Julie Garwood (I love Ransom and the Secret, but haven't read many others)
• Linda Howard
• Karen Marie Morning (Fever and Highlander Series)
• Gawen Gristow
• Susan Higgnebotham
• Liz Carlyle
• Sherrilyn Kenyon
• Sandra Brown
• Jude Devereaux (I've read several of hers and have enjoyed them)
• Anita Shreve
• Stephanie Laurens
• Suzanne Brockmann
• Theresa Madeiros
• Johanna Lindsay
• Lauren Willis

Some of your recommendations that I have read, including a few extra of my own:

• Philippa Gregory: loved The Other Boleyn Girl and The Constant Princess; her Wideacre series seriously turned me off from her
• Percy Jackson series: awesome YA fun, like a mythology version of Harry Potter, though not quite as good (that's not an insult though, nothing is)
• Twilight series: Ugh.  I can't figure out how I feel about these books.  The writing is terrible, Bella is the worst female heroine who ever served as the center of a series and the inexplicable focus of all male attention, and if Stephenie Meyer used the words "beautiful" "frozen" or "marble" to describe Edward one more time I was going to punch my book (also Edward is controlling and condescending and I hate it) -- and YET, I've read each book in that series 4 times.  I love the idea and hate the execution every time, but I'm not giving away the books because I know I'll read them again. 
• Outlander/Diana Gabaldon books: go read them.  Also, read the Lord John books, or at least lord John and the Brotherhood of the Blade because it adds a lot of backstory that is relevant to the most recent Outlander novel.
• Sara Donati: her Wilderness series is awesome (starting with Into the Wilderness).  I found her because Diana Gabaldon recommended her on her website and the books did not disappoint.
• True Blood: super fun series. I liked the books better than the HBO series, but I almost always do
• Linda Lael Miller: this is purely for Cee, my cowboy romance afficionado- have you read these?  I picked up "Garrett" in a Walgreens when I was desperate for a book on vacation and had lots of fun reading it.  The fictional McKettrick ranch would be less than an hour from my house and reading about it makes me think of an entirely different life I could be leading.  Kind of like The Pioneer Woman, but with less homemade cooking.
• Elizabeth Hoyt: picked up one of her Legend of the Four Soldiers series (To Seduce a Sinner, which is actually #2) at an airport during a long layover in October and really liked it.  I finished the series over that weekend and it kicked off my most recent spat of romance reading.
• Julia Quinn Bridgerton series: solidly fun regency romance. Anthony's and Francesca's stories were my favorite, but I've read them all 2-3 times since I discovered the series in November (except Gregory and Hyacinth's stories, I haven't bought those yet and haven't felt a need for them).
• Sharon Kay Penman: her Wales series is probably one of the best historical fiction series I've ever read.  Start with Here Be Dragons and keep going (I even linked it for you and I didn't do that with any others).  Someone asked me in the comments what book I'd recommend to someone who hadn't read romance before, and if you like historical fiction at all, I'd say this one.  A friend of mine who does not like romance but loves historical nonfiction said she LOVED this book and was surprised to see how much she cared about the romantic part of the story.  If you're a pure romance fan, I'll warn you that Penman is heavy on the history, but she does a fabulous job with it and her research helps tell the story rather than getting in the way of it.

Also, to the people who recommended Pixel of Ink facebook page and website, THANK YOU.  I'm also looking forward to checking out the paperback swap website, but I do love my kindle and I do re-read books a LOT, so I love having my own copy.  Thanks to Pixel of Ink I found Kathryne Kennedy- her Fire Lord's Lover and Enchanting the Lady were both free.  They're paranormal/magic romance, which is not my usual genre, but I loved both books and immediately got the next two in the Relics of Merlin series.  I read all four books in four days, so they're fast reads (they're set in Victorian England and the premise is that titles are given based on magical ability, not birth/wealth; other than the date and relatively accurate descriptions of London, they have zero anchor in history, they're pure fun).  JP gets super annoyed at how quickly I read books.  He's been working on some non-fiction tome for months, but I always tell him that if he read something with witty dialogue, dramatic fake situations, and great sex, instead of a book about a dead person where you already know the ending, he'd read faster too.  He is not convinced, but I think he's just being stubborn.

Future posts won't be this long, I'll just sum up a few you recommended, with my own comments if I've read them since the previous post, and add any other good books I've read in the meantime.  I'm not sure if it's a support group meeting or more like a convention where we revel in the fact that we like books with ridiculous titles, but I'm leaning more towards the latter.  I loved this article from the New York Times and one commentor's statement that readers of romance tend to have more romantic marriages.  I have nothing to back that up, but I'm repeating it anyway because I like it and I'm pretty sure JP can always tell what kind of book I'm reading (and only in part because I suddenly want him to tell me he loves me way more often). 

So thanks again for your previous comments, my Amazon wish list is now super long and I'm really hoping Santa is planning to put an kindle e-book gift card in my stocking.  Happy reading everyone!