I think I've had all I can take, for the moment, of dark and tortured heroes. Dark and tortured plots. Dark and tortured settings. Evil, dark and torturous villains and their filthy, irredeemably awful henchmen.I just finished Anna Campbell's Untouched. It was good, but argggh. I am officially at my limit for reading about the profoundly horrible things that Our Hero has had to rise above to become The Man He Is Today. I'll do an actual review later-- I want to do it justice.
But for now, I'd really like to read some fluff that's ACTUALLY fluffy. Maybe Jill Shalvis. I have a stack of Julia Quinn's backlist. Maybe it's time for Jenny Crusie re-read. I can't decide.
Any other suggestions?
11 comments:
Linda Wisdom's 50 Ways to Hex Your Lover. It's still vampire, but seriously, the action is so minor that it's really refreshing. It really isn't dark and twisty at all.
It's always time for Crusie.
And I say you should circle back around to Eloisa James, maybe this time with her "Desperate Duchesses" books or (my favorite, although you'll miss some back story from the series) "The Taming of the Duke." Rafe (the duke) is a very funny alcoholic who gives up the sauce. So there's substance, but also a lot of humor.
Bets, I think I have the latest Duchess book waiting for me... and I did nosh through the Shakespeare ones, last year I think. Good stuff. Rafe's story was really an interesting take on handling alcholism in a historical setting.
I read a statistic somewhere about colonial America that cited a staggering percent of adults were alcoholics. Like 80 or 90 percent.
Guess that's what happens when beer is safer to drink than water.
Kathy Love's "The Young Brothers" series is about tortured vampires, but they're tortured at the chick lit level, not the Acheron level. Angst lite?
Michelle Bardsley's "Broken Heart, Oklahoma" series is decently written and pretty light.
Erin McCarthy's "Vegas Vampires" series is also decently written and pretty light.
Casting Spells by Barbara Bretton was a delight.
Flirting with Danger by Suzanne Enoch - if you like Crusie, I bet you'll read this and be driven to read the rest of the (so far) four book series.
Mysteria and Mysteria Lane are fun.
Necking by Chris Salvatore was a good chick lit vampire tale.
Nina Bangs' "MacKenzie Brothers" series was angst lite, too.
Whew! :)
The Edge of Impropriety by Pam Rosenthal has a lack of darkness and features rational people behaving rationally. Unusual that. I loved it.
There's a British writer called Jilly Cooper who writes fun, funny romances that really make me laugh. She does great bloody blockbusters now but she did about 6 littles ones years ago, all of which are just nice and fun and cute: Emily, Imogen, Harriet, Prudence are 4 of them. They're in constant print over here but I'm not sure if you'd be able to get them.
Hmmmm, Tump, that sounds a lot like a challenge. Heh. I'll look for them, thanks, and I also like the occasional great bloody blockbuster, too. ;)
Chris, thanks for all the great recs! I did like the one short that I read by Suzanne Enoch, I'll look for her. And I have some Nina Bangs (heheheheh -- her name is BANGS {/twelve year old}
Most of Enoch's stuff is historicals (not my thing), but her romantic suspense series kicks butt. :)
Definitely Julia Quinn, esp. the Bridgerton books. Funny dialogue, sexy heroes, cool heroines and great sex. Can't ask for anything other than that!
And the stories aren't dark. :)
I just finished the new Kristan Higgins, Too Good to be True. It was outstanding and made me laugh out loud a couple of times.
I keep her entire backlist for that exact thing. It's kind of like me need to watch Friends after I watch a horror movie. So I get where you're coming from.
I know how you feel. I read Edgar Sawtelle which was not exactly roses and am in the middle of Anna Karenina which is not exactly light reading. I'm moving on to that Dewey the Library Cat book after this - but I think it will be sad at some point too. As for light and fun romance, I read Confessions of a Contractor by Richard Murphy last year and enjoyed it very much.
How to Knit a Wild Bikini by Christie Ridgway. Sunny and hot.
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