Romancing July: 30 Books, 30 Covers, 30 Days: Cover Me and Review
Lilian Hart disappoints with Dane.
Grade: D- (Amazon 2 Stars)
Synopsis: 10 years ago (it’s always a decade in these books), Dane left behind his small town home and the love of his life when the death of his mother prompted him to evaluate himself and his dreams. Journalism degree in hand, Dane set out to see the world and become a better man. Little did he know that when he left he would break his girlfriend’s heart and abandon his unborn son…
When Dane returns home a decade later, his rental car breaks down, and his first stop in town is Charlie’s Autoshop. Surprise, surprise. Charlie is Charlotte, his long ago but never forgotten lover…
They fight. They have sex. He has drinks with his brothers. A waitress lets slip that Charlotte has a 9-year-old son. Dane does pregnancy math. Dane gets angry that no one has told him about his son. Dane drives to confront Charlie. She admits her deceit. Dane demands to be a part of her son’s life. She refuses. He proposes. They have more sex. They agree to be a happily-ever-after family. The end. Yes, you heard me, “the end.”
Currently, it is a FREE Amazon Kindle download!
The Good: The premise is so promising and filled with emotional tension, and the characterizations have such potential: war-journalist from small town, single-mother who knows how to fix engines.
The Bad: The tale is a bit of fluff that generates little interest. Seriously, even as erotica this was a super fail. I’ve been more turned on by a bag of popcorn. And I mean that with respect. Really, I do. I have tremendous sympathy with writers and their work. I am one. My book will be released in October (shameless plug?), so I know intimately what it requires to write a novel. That’s how I know–without a doubt–that this is not acceptable. I don’t read erotica. Or, at least I didn’t until I decided to sample free Kindle downloads… But I can tell you without a doubt that this story was too abbreviated for any self-respecting sub-genre. I’ll admit that the backstory provided a reasonable “excuse” for the jump into the sexy and that the outline of the story was strong, but it all remained merely an outline. The entire narrative occurred over the course of one evening, and it was so quickly read. With that said, despite the tale’s flimsy nature, the story was still more substantial, weighty, and memorable than the smexy stuff. Ultimately, then, it failed as fiction and as erotica…
Of course, a colleague of mine (Beth Yarnall) recently reminded me that “one person’s wall banger is another person’s cherished re-read.” Can some of you tell me what you think about erotica? My sense of erotica is that is should be a solid story with the smexy dialed up. Am I wrong? What do you expect when you read erotica? Do you like it, love it, hate it? Have you read this book and enjoyed it?
The Ugly: The Cover. Oh, the cover…
We’ve all been there. We’re wandering through a bookstore, or maybe aimlessly searching suggestions, looking at random lists on Amazon.com for something to read. Happily, we traipse through booktopias convinced that we’re going to find something wonderful to read and then… We are greeted with this:
Before I begin, I feel I must point out one very simple fact:
Most authors get absolutely no input in their covers, or, if they do, it’s mostly a kind of courtesy. Publishers rule. Authors weep and hope for reprints.
Challenge accepted. Unleashing Mockery…
Lovely Dane and all his little friends… Though the main character is supported by a casts of his many muscles, his headlessness has me rather disturbed. Hello objectification!
Don’t get me wrong, I am all for giving men a taste of their own medicine. We ladies have been objects for far too long. Let’s have a quid pro quo era. A little tit for tat. That’s all fine and dandy. I heartily approve of headless tat in magazines or promotional ads, but in romance? I think not.
Romance is about intimacy and connection–and you can’t have that with a brainless, headless wonder. I promise you. You can’t. There is a reason the writer cast Dane as a journalist. Smart men are sexy. Low-hung jeans and ummmm… yup, uh-huh, sure… do not a lover make. Give this man back his shirt. Put his head back on, and then we’ll talk.
Forgive the cover artists, for they know not what they do.
More Books With Benefits for You–>
Cover Me: Judith McNaught’s Until You
Review: Irene Preston’s Infamous
Editorial: Man’s Trash Is a Woman’s Treasure?
Stranger IN Fiction: An Open Letter to J.R. Ward (about Aggressive Males in Romance Fiction)
Categories: Authors, Cover Me, Genre: Contemporary, Liiana Hart, Quickies, Reviews, Say It Like You Meme It
Tags: Book Covers, Cover Me, D+, JW, Reviews
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Review: Under Her Spell by Eliza Daly 
Friday Read: Beginning Again by Peggy Bird 
Review: Winter Storms by Lucy Oliver 
Friday Reads: Through the Lens by K. M. Jackson 
Review: For the Love of Big Orange: A Bluegrass Country Novella by Leta Gail Doerr 
I have to say, I hadn’t ever read any erotica, either, until I came upon this very book on Amazon. Since then, I’ve read everything Liliana has published and am anxiously awaiting her newest MacKenzie story, out Christmas day (THAT’S a shameless plug). I’ve also introduced many friends and family members to her books…all of whom are at least giving them a try. I love reading, and I myself am also a writer and I’d like to answer your query about a reader’s expectations on erotica by saying two things…1) I believe erotica, as every other genre, is defined, not by what any publisher or author says, but by what the readers themselves consider it to be (to each his own) and 2) my personal experience has been that it’s much more interesting and enjoyable to delve into a new genre or piece of work WITHOUT any expectations or preconceived notions. Having an open mind when I begin reading anything allows me to form my own opinions without considering anyone else’s comments. For example, if you were to purchase a book by your favorite author, after which a friend tells you it’s terrible and so you never read it, you’re only doing yourself a great disservice…you may have fallen in love with that book, but sadly you’ll never know. Lastly, in regards to your comments about the cover, I completely support Liliana’s decision to not put a head on that gorgeous body. The muscle structure and appearance of the body is a little generic, and it doesn’t hurt any of the story to show it on the cover. However, Ms. Hart has posted pictures on her Pinterest boards of what she sees when she envisions the characters in her stories, and while some of them are pretty close to what I imagined as well, some of them are not what I see when I read those characters at all. If I were to see the faces of people she has compared her characters to before reading her stories, there are several I wouldn’t have read in the first place. While you’re certainly entitled to your opinion, so is everyone else and I don’t think its fair for anyone to say any author has failed with anything. While Dane isn’t my favorite of her stories, if I hadn’t at least tried it, I never would’ve found any of her other stories, and she’s now my favorite contemporary author alongside Janet Evanovich.
I appreciate your feelings and am very happy that you decided to share them with us and our readers. Still, in the blogosphere, I hear over and over the idea that reading is so entirely subjective that it is “unfair” to give any negative opinions at all. I have trouble with the logic of this. First, even if I accept the total subjectivity of reading, then positive and negative opinions are equally valid and, thus, fair. If it is reasonable to share subjective positive feelings about texts. Then, obviously, it must be reasonable to share subjective negative feelings about texts. However, I do not accept the theory of unlimited subjectivity. That is a reductio ad absurdum. To insist that reading is wholly subjective and that no evaluations can be made as to whether something is bad or good is going, I think, too far. If there was no “good” or “bad,” if all was simply open to free and subjective opinion, why do editors and publishers make judgments about what to publish and not publish? Why do some books become bestsellers and others do not? Why do some books become literature and others do not? Of course, the answers to all of these questions are too complex to go into here, but I have a Master’s degree in English Literature— I was trained to evaluate texts. You, too, have also been trained–perhaps not in a degree program, but as a reader and writer–you, too, have a sense of what makes a book good or bad. Why is it so unacceptable to talk about what makes a book work and what doesn’t? I don’t understand all this talk of fairness. Reviews and critiques are part of any business. Are people calling Ebert unfair? If I have read the entire work and taken its context into consideration before making my evaluation of a work–well, then, I think I have been fair. You can have your opinion. I can have mine, obviously. But, ONE of us is wrong. — I am willing to admit that it MIGHT be me. However, I am not willing to admit that we can BOTH be right. If reading is THAT subjective, then this blog and this conversation would be meaningless, and I will not accept that. So, let’s keep having these little battles, shall we?