Free E-Books from Harlequin

I'm so happy with my new iPhone as an e-book reader and even more so after downloading Fictionwise's eReader. It's an free application you can download for the iPhone that allows you to read e-books and to download them easily from Fictionwise. To celebrate their version 1.2 release of the software, Harlequin is offering three free e-books through the eReader.com site. You need to create an account or already have a credit card on file to get the free download. The offer expires 9/12/08. The three free books are: Risque Business by Tawny Weber, The Tycoon's Very Personal Assistant by Heidi Rice and His Expectant Ex by Catherine Mann.

Free Online Books from Avon

Avon started something really cool this month called Love Gives Back. They are giving sneak previews of new books up to two weeks prior to their release date. In addition featured authors will be selecting books that will available entirely free online. Right now there are 10 books that I'll definitely be checking out. The best part is that Avon will be donating books to charity based on the number of pages you read online. For every 100,000 pages browsed Avon is going to donate 100 books to ProLiteracy Worldwide. Each month, now through December 23rd, they will donate up to 1,000 books. Click here to get started reading now!

Book Shopping

On Friday I went shopping for books at a mall near work and I stumbled across this large kiosk ad for Gena Showalter's latest release, The Darkest Pleasure. I think this has to be the biggest ad I've seen for a romance novel. Does this mean romance advertising is becoming more mainstream? I'd like to think so since romance is the biggest selling segment of the fiction paperback market. Notice the strategic beam of sunlight across the cover?

Back to shopping, I picked up Sherrilyn Kenyon's Acheron. It's quite possible thicker than any other book I've purchase before topping out at 728 pages. Once I'm finished (this could take a while) I'll be posting a review over at Vampire Genre.

2008 RITA Award Winners

Best Contemporary Romance: Catch Of The Day by Kristan Higgins - loved this one
Best First Book: Dead Girls Are Easy by Terri Garey
Best Romantic Suspense: Ice Blue by Anne Stuart
Best Paranormal Romance: Lover Revealed by JR Ward - loved this one too
Best Regency Historical Romance: The Secret Diaries of Miss Miranda Cheever by Julia Quinn
Best Historical Romance: Lessons of Desire by Madeline Hunter
Best Young Adult Romance: Wicked Lovely by Melissa Marr

For the full list of winners and nominees in each category, visit DearAuthor. Congratulations to all the authors who were recognized.

RWA in San Francisco

Romance Writers of America is having their annual conference this week in San Francisco. The Today Show had a segment this morning about the popularity of romance featuring Nora Roberts and there's also an appearance by Sarah Wendell from one of my favorite web sites, Smart Bitches who Love Trashy Books. Check out the video here.

Jezebel: Why Chick-Lit Covers Are Pink

A blog I regularly read called Jezebel has a great article about the publishing trend of slapping a pink cover on books written by women, or even written by a man with a female protagonist.

It has been suggested that females prefer pink because of an evolutionary preference for reddish things like ripe fruits and healthy faces. We also prefer pink books. Or at least the publishing industry is so convinced of this that to cover their asses they're wantonly packaging any book written by a woman with a chick-litish cover in the desperate hopes that we'll buy it. Having cottoned on to the fact that chick lit books sell like cupcakes, publishers are now adding chick lit-style covers to any book written by a woman whether it fits the genre definition or not.

Speaking of, covers that don't reflect what's inside irritate me. I picked up The Wedding Officer thinking it was a light frothy romance but instead was a very gritty realistic view of the tragedies of WWII in Italy which included starvation, prostitution, rape, VD, and murder. Not that I didn't think it was a good book, but it's something I definitely have to be in the right frame of mind for. In the article Sadie Stein said publishers may experience a backlash over this treatment:

They are, however, likely to be disappointed when they get to the beach and find that instead of some heartwarming bit of froth they've ended up with Serious Fiction full of incest and substance abuse.

Right on sister. Read the full article here.

Annual Cover Contest 2007

Vote for the best and worst romance novel covers from 2007. There are seven categories, sadly only one of those is for worst cover. Seems like there were a lot of craptastic covers last year and most of them perpetrated by Kensington. Go vote at the Cover Cafe. Voting ends midnight May 25, 2008.

RT Book Reviews 2007 Award Winners

The Romantic Times Book Lovers Convention just concluded this past week in Pittsburgh, PA. At the convention they announced the 2007 award winners. Here are some of the highlights of books I thought were fabulous. It's nice to see these author's talent recognized.

Best Contemporary Romance: All About Evie by Beth Ciotta

Best Vampire Romance: Lover Unbound by J.R. Ward

Best Paranormal Romance: Touch of Madness by C.T. Adams and Cathy Clamp

Best Romantic Intrigue: No Regrets by Shannon K. Butcher

Best Urban Fantasy: Halfway to the Grave by Jeaniene Frost

Best Urban Fantasy Protagonist: Rachel Morgan from For a Few Demons More by Kim Harrison

If you're looking for a new book to read you can't miss with one of these.

RWA Fights Illegal Downloads of Romance Novels

Romance Writers of America is listing the sites where you can illegally download romance novels in an effort to "fight" the growing problem. Umm, so why are they telling people where to go to get free stuff? Just sayin...

Read the full article at Publisher's Weekly.

2008 RITA Award Nominations

The Romance Writers of America has released their list of nominees for the 2008 RITA Awards. There are a few good books on the list, but most of them I've never heard of. Some of the highlights (and lowlights) are:

Contemporary Single Title Romance Finalists:
Blame It On Cupid by Jennifer Greene (erm, I read this last weekend and I can't even remember what it was about)

Catch Of The Day by Kristan Higgins (great story, I'm such a sucker for books with dogs)

Tangled Up In You by Rachel Gibson (I've really enjoyed all her Idaho books)


Paranormal Romance Finalists:
Demon's Kiss by Maggie Shane (hated it from the first, has lame character names like Vixen and Reaper)

Lover Revealed by J.R. Ward (good book but hated the ending)


Romance Novella Finalists:
Christmas Cravings from Holiday With A Vampire by Maureen Child (I'm not big on short stories/novellas but this one was really good. Plus I got it as a free download from eHarlequin over Christmas)

Click here for the full list of nominees

All About Romance Reader Poll

Every year, All About Romance does it's annual reader poll. The poll was limited to books released in 2007. The results are interesting and it's a good place to get ideas of new authors or books to try. I pretty much always surprised at the "best of" results. They trend toward historical romance which I am *so* not into. But here's a little tidbit of the poll.

Best Romance: If His Kiss is Wicked - Jo Goodman, tied with The Serpent Prince - Elisabeth Hoyt
Best New Author: Anna Campbell
Guiltiest Pleasure: Lover Revealed by J.R. Ward

Lover Unbound and JR Ward were all over the "worst of" categories. If His Kiss is Wicked won in several "best" categories. Click here to read the entire list.

Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award

Amazon.com is hosting a contest to find a "Breakthrough Novel", whatever that means. The top 100 semi-finalists have been announced and 10 finalists will be announced on March 3rd. Amazon customers will have a chance to vote and choose the winner. There are five categories: general literature, historical fiction, mystery/thriller/suspense, romance, and science fiction/fantasy. From now until March 2 you can download, read and review excerpts to "help decide" who will make it to the top ten. There are customer review prizes, so if you're interested get over to Amazon now and start reading.

Harlequin Giving Away a Sony Reader

I think this Sony Reader has to be one of the coolest things out there for e-books. Sony has teamed up with Harlequin to create a special Valentines Day themed e-book reader. Harlequin has kicked in 14 e-books to the deal. They have long since sold out but Harlequin is giving one away on their blog. Enter here by February 29th for your chance to win.

Free Books from Samhain Publishing

Samhain Publishing is giving away three print paperback books this month. They are also giving away a free e-book on February 26th (enter by February 25th). Click here to enter for the e-book and click here to enter for the print books.

Illustrated Romance Novels?

Medallion Press of Illinois is launching an illustrated romance novel line called Passion's Blood. The first title published will also be called "Passion's Blood". Referred to by the Medallion publicist as "adult fairy tales", these romance "picture books" should be quite interesting. If the cover art is anything to go by, these have the potential for hilarity. I guess I'll wait for my ARC, ...yeah right.

Via Publishers Weekly

Harlequin Book Reading Challenge

Harlequin is challenging it's community members to read 100,000 books in 2008. When the reading challenge ends on December 31, 2008, Harlequin will donate 100,000 books to the National Center for Family Literacy (NCFL). They are asking community members to read books and blog about them. It's not entirely altruistic however, to be counted at least 50% have to be Harlequin books. That shouldn't be too hard since most Harlequin books seem to average about 150 pages. To find out more information go to eHarlequin.com.