One Good Constance Bennett Deserves Another

Constance and Joan Bennett were glamorous and gorgeous movie stars of Hollywood's Golden Age. It was said that A Star is Born was based on Constance's film What Price Hollywood.

That was that Constance Bennett. This Constance Bennett is the bestselling author of twenty contemporary and historical romances. But, though she spent four years performing live theatre and studying film and television in Los Angeles, her biography departs from that of her movie star namesake. Nonetheless, her resume has plenty of glamor to boast about, including a passel of Romance Writers of America Rita nominations. In Morning Sky, one of three western romances published by E-Reads, a lovely widow is locked in a battle against crooked cattlemen. When a mysterious, compelling stranger shows up to take her side, she is enthralled - until she begins to suspect that his dark past places him on the wrong side of her fight for justice. Unfortunately, she's hooked on him.

- Richard Curtis

The Bidding War and the Birthday Party

Honestly, this really happened.

In 1987 Little, Brown published Heiress by Janet Dailey. It was Little, Brown's first Janet Dailey book after wooing her away from her previous publisher, and Janet really nailed this story of a young woman who, after her father dies, discovers she has a sister. It went on the bestseller list and stayed there for about two months.

There was feverish interest among paperback publishers in bidding for the reprint rights, and an auction closing date was set. That date sounded disturbingly familiar to me. As well it might be. "It's your son's fifth birthday," my wife reminded me, "and we're having a party that day, remember? Don't even think of going to your office that day. I need you to take pictures. And besides," she added, "don't you want to see the magician?"

And so my wife and I played host to a dozen five-year-olds and a magician on the day that paperback rights were being auctioned by Little, Brown. I gave my home number to the editor conducting the bidding and asked her to call me as the auction developed. And she did - while the magician was performing.

He had just tossed a bunch of colored handkerchiefs into his hat when the phone rang. It was my friend at Little, Brown. "Warner just opened with an $800,000 floor bid!" she announced.
Before I could say anything the children shrieked with joy. "YAYYYYY"
"What the hell is that?" the editor asked. Do you have a cheering section set up for this auction?"
"No," I stammered. "It's the magician. He just pulled the handkerchiefs out of his hat and they're all somehow knotted together. Uh, it's my kid's birthday party."
"I see. Well, I'll call you if there's more action."
And she did. Two minutes later, she had an offer for a million dollars from another bidder.
"YAYYYYY!"
"Rabbit in the hat?" my editor friend asked dryly.
"No, a white dove. I have no idea how he did it!"
"Um, what about the million dollar offer?"
"That's terrific too," I said, raptly watching the dove flapping on the magician's sleeve.
"I'll be back to you if there's another offer."
She did and there was. "It's up to a million two!"
Now it was my turn: "YAYYYY"
"This time it's a rabbit, right?" asked my friend.
"Hell no. The magician left half an hour ago. I'm cheering for you!"

And that's how I'll always remember Heiress. But you'll remember it for another reason: it's a marvelous novel by an author at the top of her game. YAYYYY!

- Richard Curtis

You were a Virgin? Sorry About That!

Before rescuing Susanna from a fire consuming Ammonville's Fallen Angel brothel, Aaron Court takes this intoxicating beauty, mistaking her for one of the professionals plying their trade. Now he is in a heap of trouble. How much trouble? Well, it happens that she was not only an innocent maiden, but the young sister of the establishment's owner.

Now that he's rescued her he has to rescue her reputation as well, which is about as easy as restoring a girl's virginity. As if that's not difficult enough, the memory of her yearning body fills him with an irresistible desire to be with her again. A case of out of the fire and into the frying pan.

Read Elizabeth Chadwick's Wanton Angel to learn if the lovers will be able to squeeze through the horns of this dilemma.

Elizabeth Chadwick is a penname for romantic mystery novelist Nancy Herndon. E-Reads carries novels under both names.

- Richard Curtis

What Did He Expect When He Invited a Lingerie Saleswoman into His Life?

The cooler they are the hotter they get, and Hunter Adams fancies himself to be as cool as frost. But vixen Trisha Malloy is hotter than a blowtorch, and it will be a long time before his temperature returns to normal.

Read The Harder They Fall and learn by Jill Shalvis is a bestselling author.

- Richard Curtis

Excuse Me, Ava Gardner, Would You Like to Dance?

Recently, when we promoted Maggie Davis's torrid genre romances, we told you that she was also a serious mainstream novelist, and in Stage Door Canteen she has reconstructed the famous World War II recreation center where a furloughed serviceman could set his cares aside for a few hours and dance with a pretty girl before returning for duty. Sometimes stars of stage and screen would offer to serve as hostesses, giving GI's not just a dance but the memory of a lifetime.

In this E-Reads Original, Maggie Davis has created a cast of men and women unknown to each other, whose lives intermingle on a dance floor illuminated by the fires of war. When a man stepped out on that floor he didn't know if he'd be holding in his arm the girl next door or an exquisite movie star. Or a German spy...

- Richard Curtis

No Cold Showers, Please, We're British: Elizabeth Chater's Regencies

In just a generation, the erotic content of romance fiction has gone from demure curtsies to Four Cold Showers, from Nothing Spoken to Anything Goes. How to explain, then, the eternal allure of the Regency Romance, which leaves all to the imagination, where everything you need to know about sex is conveyed through a glance or the flutter of a fan. The answer, I think, is that it's all about sexual tension, communicated through the impeccable manners and exquisitely nuanced conversation of civilized ladies and gentlemen. But if you think Regencies are quaint and "so yesterday," the fact is that readers just can't get enough of them.

Among the most popular Regency authors I know of is the late Elizabeth Chater. E-Reads has over a dozen, and though they are all hugely popular with fans, one of their favorites is The Elsingham Portrait.

You'll need no cold showers after reading Elizabeth Chater, yet you'll learn as much about what goes on behind closed doors as you would from the explicit sex scenes of a contemporary novel.

- Richard Curtis

The Elusive Miss Chesney

It's always nice for a publisher to know something about the authors it publishes. Sorry we can't help you with Marion Chesney.

But at least we're not alone. Despite a huge list of books published under the Chesney name, to say nothing of such others as M. C. Beaton, Sarah Chester, Helen Crampton, Ann Fairfax, Marion Gibbons, Jennie Tremaine, and Charlotte Ward, personal information about her is shrouded in obscurity, and if that's the way she likes it, far be it from us to inquire further. She doesn't even have a website, and who can blame her? If she did. the prolific Miss Chesney would have to spend all her time uploading information about her titles. We are reliably informed that she's a Scotswoman and lives and writes in a village in the English Cotswolds. I would therefore have to speculate that she's not tall, because Cotswold villages were created when the English were eight or ten inches shorter than they are now. I know this because I forgot to duck when I passed beneath the lintel of the entrance to a hotel in a Cotswold town called Broadway, and I have the scar to prove it.

The one thing I'm certain about is that E-Reads has eleven of her Regency novels and they are delicious examples of a genre that still holds allure for readers who love civilized and elegant dialogue between ladies, gentlemen, and cads. You might start with Sins of Lady Dacey, but every one of them will reward those with a taste for Things Edwardian.

- Richard Curtis

You Can't Get a Man With a Gun -- Or Can You?

USA Today bestseller Linda Winstead Jones's Guardian Angel is living refutation of that famous tune from Annie Get Your Gun. But there's much more to this romance than a gal with a gun, especially when you realize that the guardian angel of the title is named Gabriel.

Paranormal twists come as no surprise to Linda's fans. It's hard to think of any book of hers that can be categorized in fewer than two words - fairy tale romance, romantic suspense, time travel romance, paranormal fantasy, historical ghost stories - you see what I mean. Nor should it come as a surprise that three of her books have been Rita Award finalists and one of them won it in 2004. So, don't even think of predicting which way her stories are going to jump.

E-Reads has a lucky thirteen Linda Winstead Jones novels.

For a complete overview of Linda's books, visit her website, www.lindawinsteadjones.com .

- Richard Curtis

Maggie Davis: "To Be Read with Suntan Lotion"

"To be read with suntan lotion" is how Romantic Times described Maggie Davis's Hustle Sweet Love. That's because "It's hot enough to give you sunburn in the dead of winter!" But Davis's books are not just sexy, they're witty, too. The fact is, she's classically educated and trained. How many romance writers do you know who gave writing courses at Yale and were guest writer/artist at the International Cultural Center in Hammamet, Tunisia?

Nevertheless, at the end of the day you want characters you love, a story that soars, and -- yes -- that sunburn-inducing heat. E-Reads has nine delicious Maggie Davis novels on our website. Suntan lotion not included.

- Richard Curtis

Your Wife May Not Understand You, But Laura Kinsale Does

In 2005 I accepted the Rita Award, the Romance Writers of America's highest honor, on behalf of my agency's client Laura Kinsale, who was unable to attend the ceremony. With tongue in cheek I presented her with an award of my own: the Damaged Men's Lifetime Achievement Award, explaining that, "Laura Kinsale understands men! Whenever we feel our wives don't understand us, we turn for consolation to Laura Kinsale."

It's hard to pick a favorite among the three novels of Kinsale that E-Reads publishes, but if hard-pressed I'd have to pick Prince of Midnight. Its dark, damaged male protagonist (a lot darker and more damaged than Fabio, the heartthrob model who posed for the cover of the original edition) called for a truly heroic woman to redeem him from bitterness and self-loathing. But in Lady Leigh Strachan, Kinsale produced a heroine every bit up to the task. Little surprise that Prince of Midnight won Romance Writers of America Golden Choice Award for Best Romance of the year in which it was published.

Laura Kinsale's resume is replete with awards and nominations for awards, and that is only fitting, as many fans (I among them) believe her to be in the first rank of the historical romance authors of our time. If you love Prince of Midnight, try Seize the Fire and Midsummer Moon next and you'll understand why the hearts of romance awards committee members beat a little faster when a Kinsale novel comes before them.

- Richard Curtis

Spanish Moss and Steel Magnolias

Speak to Jennifer Blake and you hear the lilting voice of the antebellum south; read one of her books and you're transported there. Small wonder: she is a seventh generation Louisianan and not only does the Old South course through her bloodstream, it flows like honey from her fingertips onto the keyboard. Indeed, it has flowed into over fifty books, many of them New York Times bestsellers, and E-Reads is reissuing at least half of them. But don't make the mistake of equating sweet with saccharine. Her heroines are often strong, willful, and lusty, and heaven help any man who underestimates them. It should come as no surprise that their creator, proud winner of Romance Writers of America's Lifetime Achievement Award, has been called the Steel Magnolia of Women's Fiction.

Which novel to start with? You could throw a dart at a list and land on a winner, but you can't go wrong with Love's Wild Desire.

- Richard Curtis

Hannah Howell's Heart Is in the Highlands

Hannah Howell's lusty historical romances set in Scotland's Highlands are huge hits with all who love stories of stunning, spirited women and the iron-willed men they are attracted to. In Highland Bride the heroine is not only attracted to a knight but beds him and weds him. Yet torrid sex doesn't seem to satisfy her: her husband is guarding his heart from her, and of course that only enhances her desire. But you won't be able to guard your own heart from Highland Bride or Hannah Howell's Highland heroines.

If your tastes are more western than northern, the versatile Ms. Howell also produces wonderful western romances, and E-Reads has one, A Taste of Fire.

- Richard Curtis

Love in (Every One of )These United States

How many writing careers are born when a fan puts down a book and says, "Hell, I can write better than that!"? That was pretty much what Janet Dailey said to her husband Bill one day in the early 1970's after reading a particularly tedious English romance. Janet had married the flamboyant and plain-spoken land developer after working for him for ten years, and he thought Janet ought to put her money where her mouth is. "Well woman, get off your behind and write one!" Dailey commanded.

She did and submitted it to Harlequin. They bought it, and another, and another after that. In fact, they bought another 56 after that. The Daileys toured the United States in a camper and their tour inspired Janet to set a romance in every state of the Union. (A few states inspired a second novel.) Taken altogether, they were called the Americana Series and they launched the fabulous career of one of America's reigning queens of romance.

Janet did a dozen more romances before moving into bigger single title mass market paperbacks and the Calder series, one of her hallmarks. But she didn't stop there, rising to the challenge of mainstream women's fiction and the bestseller list.

E-Reads is happy to make the Americana Series available to you both in download and print editions. We're particularly delighted to be in production with No Quarter Asked, the novel that Janet "got off her behind" and wrote at the behest of her husband, and you can look for that one in the coming months. Meanwhile, start with A for Alabama (Dangerous Masquerade) and work way through W for Wyoming (Darling Jenny). Or pick out a novel set in your home state. All roads lead to Janet Dailey's America!

- Richard Curtis

Running Very, Very Scared

If you've ever traveled through the Ozark Mountains you'll appreciate how challenging it is to run up, down, over, and through its rugged terrain. Even when you're not carrying a baby and fleeing for your life, it's all but impossible. But Kate Reed is carrying a baby and there are some really bad men after her. They've already killed her husband and they won't hesitate to kill her too if she doesn't give them her child. Kate's marathon training helps to navigate the hills and hollows, but there's no way to train for an event called Hush Your Crying Baby When Killers Are Looking For You.

It seems that Kate's husband arranged for a no-questions-asked adoption. She should have asked a few questions, like whose kid is this and are you sure they were okay about giving it up? The answers are, a) it belongs to a mob family and b) they're not okay about it. They're not okay about it at all.

That's the premise of Linda Ladd's thriller Running Scared. Linda is a leading romance writer who has successfully evolved into a thriller author. In those earlier romances you'll see Linda's gift for creating suspense and action. E-Reads carries seven of them. Linda lives on an Ozark lake and though I've never visited her home, I image it's just like the one her heroine Kate lived in when intruders broke in demanding she return the baby she had grown to love more than anything in the world...

- Richard Curtis

A Three-Gem Fantasy Novel

Reviewers keep coming back to the word "gem" in describing The Face in the Frost by John Bellairs. One said, "Bellairs' characters are gem-like, as is the world in which they move." Another described it as, "This splendid little fantasy gem." One reason for that characterization is that it's not not very long - under 200 pages. But what makes the novel - Bellairs's debut and his only one aimed at adults -- is its unique mixture of horror and hilarity. Top Amazon.com reviewer James D. DeWitt encapsulated it this way: "This is fantasy reduced to its purest form. From a laugh our loud first few pages you are plunged into nightmare and horror through to a purely satisfying ending. In decades of reading fantasy I know of no story that better illustrates the form... This is a superb book."

DeWitt didn't call it a gem. But I do. So there's your third gem. Read The Face in the Frost and add one of your own.

- Richard Curtis

Moving Another Planet

A few weeks ago I wrote about an alien race's scheme to capture Jupiter (Psst. Want to Buy a Hot Planet?) and haul it out of the solar system. E-Reads happens to carry another book about moving a planet, Greg Bear's Moving Mars. Aside from the astonishing but completely valid scientific basis for transporting a planet from one locus to another, its a wonderful novel about a young colony yearning to free itself from the influence of the parent world's exploitive government. The parent world happens to be Earth. And the government is not happy. Not happy at all. Its planning to punish the wayward colonists, and there's absolutely nothing the populace of the Red Planet can do.

Or is there? There's this nerdy kid Charles who has a scheme so risky and preposterous that in all likelihood it will blow up in his face like some schoolboy chem lab experiment. Except its not a chem lab. It's a planet.

Well, how many schoolboys have let that discourage them?

But Casseia believes in him. She's the rebellious daughter of a conservative family, and she sees Charles's cockeyed idea as fuel for the student protests she's leading. It's hard to imagine a less likely love object than Charles, but maybe Casseia could learn to get attached to someone who thinks he knows how to save their world. Maybe this tender love story explains why it wasn't just the science fiction reviewers that loved Moving Mars ("...an accomplished, thoroughly mature novel that should be placed at the top of anyone's 'to be read' stack" - Science Fiction Age), but the romance reviewers too ("...a grand adventure in hard science fiction" - Romantic Times).

E-Reads carries a great list of Greg Bear's backlist titles and there are more to come!

- Richard Curtis

(Above image of Mars courtesy of NASA.)

When Nightmares are Preferable to Reality

We've all had dreams so vivid that we wake up utterly disoriented. If it was a good dream we linger beneath the covers longing to climb back into the story. If it was bad, we lie trembling in bed until we we realize to our relief that our worst terrors were figments of our brain chemistry.

Unless you're Nicholas Tejada and you awaken to the start of World War III. Then that nightmare starts to look pretty good - until you learn that your dreams are being downloaded by a supercomputer and harnessed for a secret government project.

Oh yes - there's this intriguing woman trying to seduce you...

That's Paul Cook's Alejandra Variations.

Dream states play a role in Cook's first novel Tintagel, too, but it's a virus that puts humanity to sleep through the emotional power of music. If you're immune to the virus you have a chance to survive - at least until the politicians get into the act.

Sweet dreams? Be careful what you wish for.

- Richard Curtis

A Fantasy Classic by an Olympian Grand Master

"Wonderful, magical Fritz Leiber, before whom Bradbury and Sturgeon and Norton and Goldman and Barth and Vonnegut bow, not to mention Robinson, Busby, Anderson and even yours truly, the maddest egomaniac of them all. Fritz Leiber, very likely the best of all of us, the man who has won more awards than anyone else in the genre, the man whose words have lifted this too often wretched category to Olympian heights more than anyone cares to mention."

That encomium was written by Harlan Ellison, whose stinginess with praise is legendary. But like the great authors he cites, Ellison knows a master when he sees one, and if Fritz Leiber can humble "the maddest egomaniac of them all," it is incumbent on us to bend a knee as well.

Fritz Leiber was not merely a master but, literally a Grand Master, recipient of science fiction's highest honor, the Damon Knight Memorial Grand Master award bestowed upon a living author for a lifetime achievement in science fiction and/or fantasy. Residing with Leiber on this pinnacle are such gods as Robert Heinlein, Arthur C. Clarke, Isaac Asimov, Ray Bradbury, Robert Silverberg, Damon Knight, Anne McCaffery, Andre Norton and Ellison himself.

Leiber created not just a grand, mystic, gothically decadent and corrupt city - Lankhmar, capital of the land of Nehwon - but gave us two adventurers whose dark and often debauched characters were violently antithetical to the sterling personalities of the heroes we yearn to identify with. Or do we? If you see the real world as decadent and believe that in order to combat evil we must not only get our hands dirty but plunge to the elbows in gore -- well then, you are ready for Fafhrd and Gray Mouser. Start with Book One, Swords and Deviltry, and if you can stop short of the last page of Book Seven, you must possess a will stronger than Leiber's swords and sorcery.

In addition to the seven classic Swords novels, E-Reads carries four non-Lankhmar Leiber books, and there are more to come.

Dark Horse is currently reissuing the books in paperback, so check out their site or visit Amazon.com and collect them all.

Harlan Ellison must always have the last word, and here's it is on Fritz Leiber: "For anyone who loves great literature, Fritz Leiber walked on water."

- Richard Curtis

Escape to Byzantium

For most of us the word "Byzantium" evokes images of fabulous opulence in the cities along the trade roads of the Eastern Greco-Roman Empire founded by Constantine.

Me? I think of Susan Shwartz.

That's because Susan, who received a Ph.D. in medieval English at Harvard, produced a marvelous trilogy of fantasy novels set in an alternate Byzantium, this one populated by sorcerers and other practitioners of magic arts. In Byzantium's Crown, the first novel in the Heirs to Byzantium trilogy, a warrior prince and last in a line of kings descended from Alexander the Great, turns to a silver-haired slave girl versed in magic crafts to help him regain his throne from a powerful sorcerer.

In addition to the trilogy, E-Reads carries three other impeccably researched and beautifully narrated fantasies by a brilliant storyteller who has been nominated for both the World Fantasy and Nebula awards. If you want to escape from reading about what is happening today in the bazaars of what was once fabled Byzantium, Susan Shwartz's fantasies will transport you.

- Richard Curtis

(Pictured above, the Imperial emblem of the Byzantine Empire.)

Invitation to Tea with a Black Dragon

Some author careers culminate with a masterpiece but few launch their careers with one. R. A. MacAvoy's Tea with the Black Dragon was a first novel and a masterpiece, and it gained her the 1983 John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer. Would you say she was in good company if I told you that other winners of the award include Jerry Pournelle, Spider Robinson, Orson Scott Card, Lucius Shepard and Cory Doctorow?

Locus, the leading trade publication of the fantasy and science fiction field, called Tea with the Black Dragon "An astonishing fantasy debut." But there were lots of astonishing novels to follow, and E-Reads has acquired every one of them including Twisting the Rope (the sequel to Tea), The Grey Horse and the "Lens of the World" trilogy consisting of Lens of the World, King of the Dead, and Belly of the Wolf. Coming your way are The Book of Kells and the Damiano Trilogy. All in all, a veritable bumper crop of fantasy masterpieces.

And by the way, her name is pronounced MACK-avoy.

- Richard Curtis