Grade: B-

I don’t know anything about computers and this book is all about computer love… and I do mean computer love. If there were any in-jokes about operating systems, Microsoft, or Apple, I didn’t catch it. For me, this is really just about a lonely woman who inadvertently creates her perfect man using a computer–and you romance writers do that all the time–but the heroine in this story does this literally. Somehow, the program she creates becomes sentient and is transferred into the body of the man that the heroine just happens to be sexually attracted to. How convenient. There are also lecherous bosses, megalomaniacal bosses, and major daddy issues on the part of the heroine, but who cares about all that? This woman creates a HAL of her own and has sex with it, for God’s sake! Sure, it was a little creepy in a Ray Bradbury kind of way, but it makes for a very sizzling read.
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A reader, who would to remain anonymous because she doesn’t want to be associated with my site–kidding!–sent this cover to me and frankly, I don’t know what to say about it. My brain tells me that it’s supposed to be sexy, but my eyes don’t want to make sense of it. First of all, the red-haired female has… are you ready for this? A mullet. Check it out, that’s a full-pledged mullet right there. Business in the front, party in the back. She looks like a cross between a deranged, hick-ified Enya and Joe Dirt. I’m serious. And take a look at one of her hands there, the one touching the pillar. Doesn’t it look like she’s got webbing in between the fingers? Man, that’s what happens when you live in the Highlands and you have a really small… uh… fiefdom? And you’re forced to have sex with your kinfolk to procreate. Eww. The distracting MS Word font that I can’t quite recognize is blocking the lower half of the picture, but I think she’s rubbing her crotch against the dude’s chest. Methinks she’s got a case of crotch rot. Yeah, I’ve heard of those hippy chicks who’s all about the earth and worshipping trees and stuff but are not really fond of showers. And is homeboy really kneeling on the forest floor there? Ugh, I shudder to think of the sharp rocks cutting into his poor knees. A male model has to take care of his body, you know! Do you think he’s wearing knee pads? I bet you five bucks he is! Which reminds me, why are their feet blurred up like they’re censored? Do they have nipples for toes?

Thanks for this cover, Anonymous!

Grade: B-

First of all, I hunted this anthology down specifically for the MaryJanice Davidson story. I had read Derek’s Bane and kind of enjoyed it even though the heroine was slightly annoying, but I was really more intrigued by Michael, the leader of the pack, and Jeannie, his mate. Aside from the Angela Knight story (and I have come to depend on her to always bring in the goods), Davidson’s contribution is really the only readable one. Heck, not only was it readable, it was spunky and fun, too. Huh. The one by Alice Gaines wasn’t as horrible as getting skinned alive and bathed in lemon juice, but compared to Davidson’s and Knight’s, it was… umm… not good. The one by Sandy Fraser, on the the other hand, was a complete and total waste of time, as well as an insult to anyone with two brain cells to rub together. Not only does it have a premise that an acquisitions editor at Harlequin Blaze would have laughed at, it also features the most annoying heroine in the vein of… what, Meg Ryan? Oddly enough, the front of the book proclaims this collection to be “the best in women’s erotic romance”. Well, if that’s true, Angela Knight and MaryJanice Davidson must be the romance anthology equivalent of D.H. Lawrence, then. Okay, that was a cheap shot. Wait… no, it wasn’t.
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Grade: B

The romance in this anthology is very… um… clean. There are little or no sexual encounters and affection is expressed by chaste kisses and verbal declarations of love. There are, however, lots of longing glances, and one very heart-wrenching case of unrequited love. The hero in that one was a completely useless, whining fool, but the heroine was very assertive and kickass. The best stories in this anthology are the ones by Sharon Shinn and Lynn Kurland. I’m a huge fan of Sharon Shinn’s The Shape-changer’s Wife as well as her Samaria series, so I knew that I couldn’t expect anything less from her, but all I know of Lynn Kurland are her time-travel books and those have never impressed me, least of all the especially mawkish Stardust of Yesterday, so I was really surprised at how much I enjoyed her contribution to this anthology. The one by Sarah Monette wasn’t bad, but the hero was such a baby that I fervently wished as I was reading the book that the heroine would just take out her sword and cut off his head to put him out of his misery, but alas! she doesn’t. The one by Claire Delacroix was the only one that I had a hard time reading, but mostly because it seemed contrived and the writing was just awkward all around. It also featured a male Mary Sue that made me want to stab out my own eyes. Since I am a huge fan of Joss Whedon, one would think that I would be immune to Mary Sues, but you know what? I’m really not.
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I should really stop making fun of Harlequin romance novel covers. I might submit my work to them someday only to have some editor turn it down because she came across my site once and got pissed. Or my work sucks. Hmm. I’d prefer the former. Check out the title, y’all. Babes in Arms. Babes being plural. I wonder if that includes the infant and the fifteen year old girl caressing the sleeping man. Or maybe it means “babe” in a colloquial sense and according to the dictionary, it is used as a term of endearment meaning “sweetheart”. Hmm. I thought “babe” also meant “hot chick,” but that can’t be because this girl on the cover has the most unholy shade of orange for her hair… and she’s like, fifteen years old. Perhaps she’s the babysitter?

Also, is it just me or is the man’s complexion a little pallid? If he weren’t holding the baby, I would think he was dead. Look how weird and slack his face is! Which reminds me, what kind of parent would allow her child to model for a romance novel cover? It’s not Gerber, damn it, and it’s just gorram creepy!

Thanks for the cover, Amber!