So, what's up in the romance industry? Well, let's see...Berkley/Jove has stopped their separate lines: no more Seduction or Irish Eyes, no more Highland Fling or Time Passages. All of their books will be coming out from now on simply as single title romances. On the other end of the spectrum, Warner is starting a new romance line called Warner Forever, with all subgenres and a special banner to let the reader know that the books are part of the line.
Judging by the talk at RWA's (Romance Writers of America) national conference in July, paranormal romance is making a comeback--except for time travels, unfortunately for me and all the rest of the time travel fans. However, the paranormal mention was pretty widespread at the conference, so I'd say that in about a year or so, you can expect to find more of these in the bookstore, which will be a great thing for readers who love a little bit of the unexplainable in their reading material.
What else can you expect? A lot more of the "Bridget Jones" type stories that aren't really romance--but many romance publishers are jumping on the bandwagon. Personally, they hold no interest for me, so I'm skipping them. Another thing mentioned more than once was that the publishers are looking for new authors--good news for the unpubs among us, including me! It's also great news for readers who are always looking for a new favorite author. Also mentioned in the new author discussion is how many books a new author should expect to be writing in the beginning. One publisher mentioned that they'd like to produce five books from a new author in the initial year; others mentioned at least two or three.
And what's happening here at BellaOnline? Well, I'm rearranging the main page of our Romance Novels section, trying to make it a tad shorter, so that it's not a chore for you to reach the bottom of it. I'm also trying to make navigating the archives simpler, by listing reviews by year and also by author for those authors with multiple reviews here. That chore should be finished in a couple weeks. Let me know what you think of the new front page and categories. Also, be sure to check out our new Book Club.
Finally, I have a great new September book to share with you to kick off the month. Karen Rose Smith's latest Searching for Her Prince is also the latest in Silhouette's Crown and Glory series, with the royal family of Penwyck and those closest to them. In this outing, Lady Amira Sierra Corbin is on a mission to find Marcus Cordello, who just may be a prince of Penwyck and doesn't know it. Marcus, aka Brent Carpenter is enchanted by the lovely Amira, but he's not willing to admit to who he is. Marcus is about to leave on a vacation, but he finds himself wanting to spend more than just a couple days with Amira, who feels she must find Marcus and make her mission a success. I really enjoyed this story. Amira is someone you'll easily relate to, and Marcus, well, Marcus is the hero we all dreamed of as little girls. Of Cupid's five arrows, this one gets four. Enjoy!
Until next week, happy reading!
