[LMB] Krentz, again: Light in Shadow

[Lois McMaster Bujold]

[LMB] Krentz, again: Light in Shadow
Tora K. Smulders-Srinivasan tora.smulders at gmail.com
Mon Dec 3 15:45:50 GMT 2007

   
On 12/2/07, Lois McMaster Bujold <lbujold at myinfmail.com> wrote:
 > Ah ha, I've finally found a Krentz (Jayne Ann, contemporary romantic
 > suspense) that I can recommend unreservedly and without caveat: the
 > somewhat uninformatively titled _Light in Shadow_. 
Attractive features snipped
 > Unusually
 > for romance, it has an equally charming sequel, _Truth or Dare_.

ooooo!  Yes, definitely two of hers that I love.  An older one that I
absolutely love is called _Deep Waters_.  It's a bit hokey, but it's
somehow one of my favorites of hers.


*** Just read that one -- part of the grocery sack of Krentz I laid in 
for post-op recovery.  Yeah, it was fun.  From the era when her initial 
medium-tall, dark 'n brooding, dangerous hero-type was becoming more 
humanized, much to the benefit of her writing.


 > Testing reveals my one non-negotiable reader requirement in romance is
 > intelligent humor, or rather, sense of humor.  The book need not be a
 > comedy or a farce, but I find the completely humorless ones quite
 > unreadable.

I don't know if it's an absolute requirement for me, but I certainly
enjoy it much more.  Actually, for romances that do hit the level of
farce, which I would normally not like, but do with this author:
Vicki Lewis Thompson.  She's written at least a few great romances and
I liked her when she was still writing Silhouette (or something of
that sort) even before she hit big with her "Nerd" series recently.
The "Nerd" series books definitely lean towards the farcical, but not
too much.  Hmmm... a google search tells me she's written quite a lot
and I've only read a small number.  But those I've read, I've enjoyed.
 (the Nerd books:1. Nerd in Shining Armor (2003) 2. The Nerd Who Loved
Me (2004) 3. Nerd Gone Wild (2005)4. Gone With the Nerd (2005) 5. Talk
Nerdy to Me (2006) 6. Nerds Like It Hot (2006) 7. My Nerdy Valentine
(2007))  I've only read 2 or 3 of those.  But I don't remember
off-hand which ones.


*** I don't usually like farce because it so seldom passes the IQ test.  
I read the first two Nerd books, liked them well enough, bounced off a 
couple of others.  Her attempts to blend nerd-types with fantasy-man 
tropes don't always convince -- I mean, *real* nerds don't work out, in 
my experience.  And I know from nerds, so when she puts a foot wrong, I 
wince.  I'll have to try some of her others, perhaps.

I do have very fond memories of the sequence in the first of the Nerd 
series where the two protagonists, stranded on a deserted jungle  island 
and both nearsighted, have to share their one remaining pair of 
eyeglasses between them...



 > In case anyone is wondering, the copy edit of _Passage_ went back to New
 > York this week.  The cover art should be completed soon.  On evenings
 > and weekends, which is the only time editors actually get to edit, mine
 > is presently working on TSK#4, and I expect to get the line edit from
 > her next in the week or so.   So my work queue for December is bespoke.
 >
 > Ta, L.  (Waiting for the next Crusie, the point-woman who first broke my
 > resistance to her genre).

Yay!  I'm very happy to see Passage passing along the way to
completion and when will it be in my greedy hands?!?! 


***  Street date is April 22, rounded up to May 2008.

Time will fly.



And when do we
find out what TSK#4 gets named?  "The Final Chapter" perhaps?  Or
maybe "The End of the Road"?  Okay, I'll stop with the horrible names
right there.  ;-p



***  In the absence of a better suggestion, it will be _The Sharing 
Knife, Vol. 4: Wide Green World_.  I think.  If anyone can come up with 
a sufficiently evocative and apropos one-word replacement for the 
subtitle, I'm still open to suggestions.  But it has to be arguably 
better than the default.



Oh, and though I love romances and read a few Crusie because they were
recommended by this list and Lois and really liked them, the first one
I read -- I really hated.  (_Welcome to Temptation_, I think it was).
And somehow I think I have easy-to-please tastes.  I guess not.  Just
different from some others on the list.  ;-)

-Tora

*** Interestingly, that was also the first Crusie I read, on a friend's 
recommendation, and I was not too fond of it either.   I prefer her ones 
without the crazy-stalking-ex trope.  Try _Fast Women_ or the screwball 
_Faking It_ before you give up on her.

Oh, and a novella, "Hot Toy" to be found in a seasonal anthology _Santa 
Baby_.  It's a stitch.  I howled.  I did not find the other two stories 
in the volume to be worth my reading time, but "Hot Toy" concentrates a 
number of trademark Crusie virtues.

News flash, just in by e-mail from my editor: TSK#4 will be scheduled 
for February, 2009.  Good, I say.

Ta, L.