My Recent Comments

I'll go with Steeple Hill Love Inspired Suspense, and I like them really suspenseful, even action packed...plus a terrific romance.  I like characters where I really want it to work out for them.

I agree with Janet.  There has to be a real moment of conflict in the romance...and also a really horrific moment in terms of suspense (if its a mystery)...and they can be the same moment. 

I also like when it gets blacker and blacker and worse and worse for the romance by the page and when the odds are against the hero and heroine in the suspense part and the villian is out-smarting them at every turn, until the end, then the tables turn - both in romance and turn against the villian.

It might be a Don Juan thing.  :)

If it's a series, I like to read them in order, if I can.  Even if it's not a series, I'll read an author book by book as they write them.

Thanks for another great interview.  It was wonderful "meeting" Emily and learning about her journey in writing and at SH. Thx again.

Thx.  I wanted to also know what continuities were.

I enjoyed reading about Allison Lyons, who is my neighbor in Queens.  I also live in the Big Apple, in Brooklyn.

Steeple Hill is on the map exactly for those who want to see prayer in their novels.  It's a Christian publisher who's putting books out for Christian readers who want a prnounced faith element in the fiction they're reading.  Many of these Christian readers have found they can no longer read secular books.

Some SH authors have more actual prayers in italics in the body of the novel than others.

I read a lot of SH books, and also read Christian authors like Frank Peretti and Chuck Holton who don't write for SH.  In Peretti's book Monster, I can't recall a singe formal prayer in italics.  I could be wrong, but that's my recollection.  In fact, I wasn't even sure the two main characters were Christian until the 2nd or 3rd chapter.  I do recall the heroine, who has a huge stuttering problem, talking to God in her head, as she has trouble speaking out loud, but it wasn't formal prayer, as I recall it.

I also read a lot of secular books, mostly crime fiction series and thrillers.  However, I have Christian friends who will not read a single secular work of fiction.

Indeed, you have a right to your feelings about having formal prayer in books.  There's no question about that in my mind.

I met my husband-to-be 2 yrs after his mother met an early death.  He was very angry over the circumstances of her death and down too, really down.  A few friends who only wanted the best hero for me, an alread fixed up, normal hero advised me to dump him, that he was not good husband material.  This Oct we'll be married 22 years, and many of those friends have gotten divorces.

I'm rivetted to the HBO mini series, John Adams, and it's obivous that w/o Abagail, he's not at his best.  She's his chief advisor and when separated from her he makes poor decisions.  Hey, he's also no real prize.  He tells Thomas Jefferson, who he's beginning to form a friendship with as Jefferson, Ben Franklin and he edit Jefferson's Declaration of Independence..."I'm obnoxious."  He's right.  He can be obnoxious.  But, ohmegosh, what a HERO!  He's a little guy, not that attractive, who's 1000% alpha male.

In one scene Adams has got to get his thoughts and papers together for the Continental Congress in Philadelphia.   He's sitting at the edge of their bed and Abagail, is in the bed, advising him to cut something out of his speech.  He kisses her lips, then kisses her more fully, then he closes the drapes they have around the bed to keep the warm in.  And the camera shows the little sly cat smile on Abagail's face.  She's glad to know, as a woman, that he had to close the drapes to get his mind on business. 

I like alpha males in romance novels.  I think in our PC society where any show of testosterone is frowned on, alpha males need encouragement. 

More on the fixer-upper-hero.  Many women believe that all men have to be fixed up.  I thnk, in real life, it's a big mistake to begin a marriage with the little woman thinking she's gonna fix her man.  Everyone has flaws, at least one glaring flaw.  If you can't live with his glaring flaw, don't marry him.  That's my advise as a 22 yr happily married woman.

Now to fiction...the H's flaws make him interesting,as do the h's quirks and imperfections.  I can't imagine an alpha male in fiction w/o a glaring flaw, but I really don't want to see a h fixing him up.  I don't want to see the h shaping and molding him.  That's real turn off ot me.

But it's fantastic to see the H decide something in himself has to go to make that commitment to her and the life he wants with her...and he does it. 

 

 

Isabel - Thanks for presenting this.  And Joan thanks for all you do at SH.

Like Antia Mae, I loved the line, 'Remember that Jesus got His points across by telling wonderful stories and do likewise.'

 

I used to read any, and I mean any murder mystery, thriller, suspense novel, or crime fiction novel set in NYC.

I live in Brooklyn (one of five boroughs in NYC) and I enjoyed seeing if the author knew his/her stuff re: the Big Apple, sometimes called Gotham. 

I read a lot of lousy books that way and eventually gave up on using the NYC setting as a criteria.

But I enjoyed it while it lasted.

Interesting list you've got there.

What kinds of ratings would Harlequin Intrigue get?