A Guide to Romance

Bibliophiles: Book recommendations needed!?

I am currently reading The Condition, by Jennifer Haigh. Love it!

...Phillipa Gregory and Alison Weir.

Gregory wrote The Other Boleyn Girl. I never saw the movie so I have no idea how it compared to the book, but I found the novel to be very good at bringing folks to life. Any of her other books about the Elizabethan Age are excellent as well, but if possible you might want to read them in temporal order. Some things make more sense that way. I also liked her two books about John Tradescant the Younger. As a plant-lover I am always interested in botanical history, and the Tradescants father and son made a major mark on gardening history. The books are also set in an interesting and turbulent time after the death of Elizabeth I, through the Stuart kingship and then into the time of the "Roundheads." I also enjoyed her book about the slave trade in Britain. I have not read her most famous books about Wildacre yet - I am saving those for a rainy day.

Alison Weir only has two fiction books out, having spent most of her time writing biographies and analyses of the Elizabethan period, but her two novels are very good, one being about Lady Jane Gray and the other Elizabeth and Mary.

Amazon has decent and inexpensive trade paperbacks of these, so you can get the larger format without the heavy binding, a good choice for summer beach reading.

There is also a new national parks murder by Nevada Barr and a new book out by C.J. Box. Yes, these are both murder mysteries (and fairly gory ones at that) but both writers really bring their surroundings to life. Nevada Barr is a former park ranger who sets each mystery in a different park (one where she was actually stationed) and does a great job of making you experience the park during the book. The newest one is set in Isle Royale in the winter. Even with local outside temperatures in the 100s, I felt chilly while reading it. If you haven’t read her books before you might want to start at the beginning of the series.

C.J. Box is also the real thing, a rancher, (former) rodeo rider and actual resident of Wyoming who writes about the adventures of Joe Pickett, a man who at the beginning of the series is a game warden. Again he really has a feel for the mountains of Wyoming and passes it along beautifully in his writing. As with Nevada Barr, you might want to start at the beginning in order to follow the character development.

Amazon has many of Barr’s and Box’s books in paperback to keep the cost down, but the newest are only in hardcover.

I do find that most books out there these days seem to be either romances or murder mysteries, but the secret is to find a writer who brings character development and place to the forefront, leaving the actual mystery (or the romance) as almost an aside.

Merry Christmas, Baby $2.99 DONNA KAUFFMAN - Making Waves: The last thing playboy captain Burke Morgan needs is a last-minute replacement cook for his yacht who also suffers from motion sickness. But once he sees luscious Kamala Apolo, he's got a perfect idea for getting her body in sync with the rhythm of the water... NANCY WARREN - Let It Snow: When perky Chicago weather girl Marisa Langley gets stuck in the cold with h...

More Than Words Volume 3: Homecoming Season\Find The Way\Here Come The Heroes\Touched By Love\A Stitch In Time (More Than Words Anthology) $6.95 Introducing the third annual More Than Words anthology Five bestselling authors Five real-life heroines They're your neighbors, your aunts, your sisters and your best friends. They're women across North America committed to reaching out and changing lives, one good deed at a time. Five of these exceptional women have been selected as this year's recipients of Harlequin's More Than Words Award...

Nobody's Baby But Mine and This Heart of Mine $3.74 Nobody's Baby But Mine Genius physics professor Dr. Jane Darlington desperately wants a baby but doesn't want her child growing up, as she did, feeling like a super-intelligent freak. So Jane needs someone. . . well. . . stupid to father her child—someone like legendary Chicago Stars quarterback Cal Bonner. But this good-looking good ol' boy is a lot smarter than he lets on—and Cal's not ab...