Recently Read: JUST LIKE HEAVEN by Julia Quinn

Just Like Heaven by Julia QuinnMy rating: 4 of 5 stars

This book was just what I needed when I read it - a fun, airy story without any uberangst. Julia Quinn's Bridgerton books are some of my all-time favorites, and "Romancing Mr. Bridgerton" will forever hold a place on my top-ten list. Compared to that, "Just Like Heaven" is...well, just like, but not quite as, heavenly (sorry, couldn't resist).

That said, it was wonderful in a light sort of way. There's virtually no conflict, and the conflict is so lacking that I found myself wondering if JQ would ever get through an agent/editor submission these days, since they're beating the conflict drum with all the intensity of the cave trolls and orcs going to war in "The Two Towers". But the lack of conflict is made up for with the lovable characters, the wonderful internal/external dialogue, and the simple joy of revisiting the Smith-Smythe musicales that played such a central role in the Bridgerton series. Fans of JQ will love it; people who like their heroes and heroines angry/wounded/betrayed/bitter/desperate, not so much.

View all my reviews

2008 Reading List Recap

2008 was a so-so year for reading. I read 28 books (plus parts of another 5 books that I didn't finish) -- good for a usual year, bad given the fact that I had six months off and should have read much more than this. But here's what I read, in reverse chronological order:

VISCIOUS CIRCLE - Mike Carey

THE BELL AT SEALEY HEAD - Patricia A. McKillip

THE GRAVEYARD BOOK - Neil Gaiman

THE LIVES OF THE ENGLISH RAKES - Fergus Linnane

MR. CAVENDISH, I PRESUME - Julia Quinn

THE MYSTERIES OF UDOLPHO - Ann Radcliffe (dnf)

THE DEVIL YOU KNOW - Mike Carey

ON WRITING: A MEMOIR OF THE CRAFT - Stephen King

FORTUNE'S FOOL - Mercedes Lackey

CHALICE - Robin McKinley

NEW MOON - Stephanie Meyer

TWILIGHT - Stephanie Meyer

THE DARKEST PLEASURE - Gena Showalter

THE DARKEST KISS - Gena Showalter

THE DARKEST NIGHT - Gena Showalter

WOMEN & MONEY - Suze Orman

WHITNEY, MY LOVE - Judith McNaught

THEN WE CAME TO THE END - Joshua Farris

HOW THE SCOTS INVENTED THE MODERN WORLD - Arthur Herman (dnf)

SEX IN GEORGIAN ENGLAND - A.D. Harvey (dnf)

GEORGIANA, DUCHESS OF DEVONSHIRE - Amanda Foreman (dnf)

NORTHANGER ABBEY - Jane Austen

NATURAL BORN CHARMER - Susan Elizabeth Phillips

DARK DESIRES AFTER DUSK - Kresley Cole

DARK NEEDS AT NIGHT'S EDGE - Kresley Cole

WICKED DEEDS ON A WINTER'S NIGHT - Kresley Cole

NO REST FOR THE WICKED - Kresley Cole

A HUNGER LIKE NO OTHER - Kresley Cole

TO WED A WICKED PRINCE - Jane Feather (dnf)

THE ART OF SEDUCTION - Robert Green

THE LOST DUKE OF WYNDHAM - Julia Quinn

LAMB - Christopher Moore

BREATHING ROOM - Susan Elizabeth Phillips

This doesn't count the rereads that I did of several of my favorites (THE GRAND SOPHY, DEVIL'S CUB, THE MASQUERADERS, and THE UNKNOWN AJAX by Georgette Heyer, SUNSHINE, BEAUTY, THE HERO AND THE CROWN, and THE BLUE SWORD by Robin McKinley, and various others). It also doesn't count the bits and pieces I read out of a variety of historical research books, or the travel guides that I bought, or some items that ended up languising on my TBR shelf. I bought 47 books from Amazon alone, not counting items that I picked up at Borders or used bookstores, so I did my part to help the publishing industry stay afloat.

For 2008, my favorites were:

Best romance: A HUNGER LIKE NO OTHER by Kresley Cole. It was paranormal, but I thought her world-building was outstanding and she's created enough interesting scenarios for many intertwined books. Book six comes out this week and I've already ordered it from Amazon.

Best research book: THE LIVES OF THE ENGLISH RAKES by Fergus Linnane. The thought of treating syphilis with mercury vapors made me a bit ill, but it provided some great background into the crazy people of aristocratic England.

Best fantasy: THE BELL AT SEALEY HEAD by Patricia McKillip. I prefer the linguistic stylings of Robin McKinley (and loved CHALICE), but THE BELL AT SEALEY HEAD had a fantastic story, a wicked sorceror, a kind princess, a shy innkeeper and his rich, bookish love interest, and all sorts of other interesting characters. Highly recommend, even if you aren't usually into fantasy.

Best fiction: THE DEVIL YOU KNOW by Mike Carey. Actually, this may be fantasy -- but it's more of a noir detective story, it just happens to have ghosts in it.

The overall trend seemed to be that I was into paranormal-type books. Other than the research books and a couple of random contemporaries, almost everything I read had vampires, werewolves, ghosts, demons, or some mishmash of everything.

For me, I think I have trouble reading historical romances when I'm actively trying to write, which was the state I was in for much of the year. But paranormals provided me with the romantic elements I craved, while avoiding the historical elements that made reading historicals seem like work rather than pleasure.

What were your favorite books in 2008?

75 Books Every Woman Should Read - My Picks

Continuing with the theme of procrastinating by posting lists, check out this list of "75 Books That Every Woman Should Read" from jezebel.com. It's in response to an Esquire list of books that every man should read (which, for what it's worth, includes THE GRAPES OF WRATH because of the "titty" -- it's like the magazine stereotypes itself).

List, with my comments, is below. I've read thirteen -- how many have you read?

• The Lottery (and Other Stories), Shirley Jackson
• To the Lighthouse, Virginia Woolf
• The House of Mirth, Edith Wharton
• White Teeth, Zadie Smith - I loved this book - perhaps one of my favorites on this list!
• The House of the Spirits, Isabel Allende - sitting on my to-be-read (TBR) shelf, and has been for half a decade
• Slouching Towards Bethlehem, Joan Didion
• Excellent Women, Barbara Pym
• The Bell Jar, Sylvia Plath - not exactly warm and fuzzy, but a great read
• Wide Sargasso Sea, Jean Rhys
• The Namesake, Jhumpa Lahiri - I of course felt compelled to read this when I moved to India, but I didn't like it as much as I apparently should have
• Beloved, Toni Morrison
• Madame Bovary, Gustave Flaubert
• Like Life, Lorrie Moore
• Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen - I would lose my romance card if I hadn't read this
• Jane Eyre, Charlotte Brontë - this book is great, even if it's a bit strange to fall in love with someone whose insane wife is locked in the attic
• The Delta of Venus, Anais Nin
• A Thousand Acres, Jane Smiley
• A Good Man Is Hard To Find (and Other Stories), Flannery O'Connor - I've read a couple of stories out of this collection, but I won't count this as a full read
• The Shipping News, E. Annie Proulx
• You Can't Keep a Good Woman Down, Alice Walker
• Their Eyes Were Watching God, Zora Neale Hurston
• To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee - amazingly, we actually read this in high school, although I believe we also watched the movie; this was one step up from THE SCARLET LETTER, which we watched rather than read
• Fear of Flying, Erica Jong
• Earthly Paradise, Colette
• Angela's Ashes, Frank McCourt
• Property, Valerie Martin
• Middlemarch, George Eliot - TBR
• Annie John, Jamaica Kincaid
• The Second Sex, Simone de Beauvoir - TBR, sitting on the main TBR shelf; maybe I'll get to it this year
• Runaway, Alice Munro
• The Heart is A Lonely Hunter, Carson McCullers
• The Woman Warrior, Maxine Hong Kingston
• Wuthering Heights, Emily Brontë - I've read this, but don't remember liking it as much as I thought I would
• You Must Remember This, Joyce Carol Oates
• Little Women, Louisa May Alcott - I loved this book; I also loved LITTLE MEN, which took place after Jo married and started taking in orphaned boys, but it's a totally different story
• Bad Behavior, Mary Gaitskill
• The Liars' Club, Mary Karr
• I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings, Maya Angelou
• A Tree Grows In Brooklyn, Betty Smith - is it bad that I've never read this?
• And Then There Were None, Agatha Christie - I LOVED this mystery, even if the title was originally something that had to be sanitized several times for a more politically-correct audience
• Bastard out of Carolina, Dorothy Allison
• The Secret History, Donna Tartt
• The Little Disturbances of Man, Grace Paley
• The Portable Dorothy Parker, Dorothy Parker
• The Group, Mary McCarthy
• Persepolis, Marjane Satrapi
• The Golden Notebook, Doris Lessing
• The Diary of Anne Frank, Anne Frank - I've read it and seen her house in Holland
• Frankenstein, Mary Shelley - yes
• Against Interpretation, Susan Sontag
• In the Time of the Butterflies, Julia Alvarez
• The Good Earth, Pearl S. Buck - I adored this book, and wrote some college entrance essays on it -- even though China was worlds away from my small-town life in Iowa, I've always been fascinated by the lure of the land and tales of generational conflict
• Fun Home, Alison Bechdel
• Three Junes, Julia Glass
• A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, Mary Wollstonecraft
• Sophie's Choice, William Styron
• Valley of the Dolls, Jacqueline Susann
• Love in a Cold Climate, Nancy Mitford
• Gone with the Wind, Margaret Mitchell - yes
• The Left Hand of Darkness, Ursula K. LeGuin
• The Red Tent, Anita Diamant
• The Unbearable Lightness of Being, Milan Kundera - TBR
• The Face of War, Martha Gellhorn
• My Antonia, Willa Cather - one of the great books I read as a teenager; it also lead to a fierce argument with my best friend's mother over the pronunciation of "Antonia"
• Love In The Time of Cholera, Gabriel Garcia Marquez - I liked this book, although I'm surprised that it was picked; ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF SOLITUDE is perhaps my favorite book of all time
• The Harsh Voice, Rebecca West
• Spending, Mary Gordon
• The Lover, Marguerite Duras
• The God of Small Things, Arundhati Roy
• Tell Me a Riddle, Tillie Olsen
• Nightwood, Djuna Barnes
• Three Lives, Gertrude Stein
• Cold Comfort Farm, Stella Gibbons
• I Capture the Castle, Dodie Smith - I haven't read this, but I saw the movie and liked it
• Possession, A.S. Byatt

Given that I used to be a completely avid reader, thirteen is nothing to write home about. But, my avid reading phase stopped sometime in college, and many of these books are too depressing for my current, sadness-avoiding tastes.

What about you? What do you think is missing? Are there books on the list that shouldn't be?

All-Time Top 100 Romances - My Picks

The final draft of AN INCONVENIENT MARRIAGE is done, so it's time for me to take a break, look at my piles and piles of unread books, and make progress through them (seeing my friends, cleaning my apartment, and vegging out with some movies would also be nice). Tonight, I happened to stumble across this: the top 100 romances of all time, judged in 2007 by a poll at AAR ("All About Romance"). The poll results change every time they have one, but these are the most recent results.

I've listed the top 100 below with my thoughts -- what do you think?

1. Lord of Scoundrels - Loretta Chase

I haven't read this, but it was tops in the previous poll too, so perhaps I should check it out!

2. Dreaming of You - Lisa Kleypas
3. Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen

Adore, of course, particularly now that I can picture Colin Firth as Mr. Darcy!

4. Outlander - Diana Gabaldon

This has been recommended to me before, but I've never read it

5. Flowers From The Storm - Laura Kinsale

I am leery of this -- Ms. Kinsale also wrote PRINCE OF MIDNIGHT, which my best friend and I mocked relentlessly for a) the hero named S.T. who had vertigo, b) the wolfhound sidekick named Nemo, and c) just about everything else. But maybe I should give her another try?

6. Slightly Dangerous - Mary Balogh
7. Devil In Winter - Lisa Kleypas
8. Bet Me - Jennifer Crusie
9. Welcome to Temptation - Jennifer Crusie
10. The Viscount Who Loved Me - Julia Quinn

YES. I loved this book, even if the beesting-related forced marriage was a bit much.

11. Lover Awakened - J.R. Ward
12. Mr. Impossible - Loretta Chase
13. The Duke and I - Julia Quinn

Half-yes -- loved the characters, although Simon and Daphne's approaches to childmaking (or not-childmaking) were, on third or fourth read, completely insane.

14. It Had To Be You - Susan Elizabeth Phillips

I remember liking it, although it didn't become a "keeper" for me like some of SEP's other books

15. Lord Perfect - Loretta Chase
16. Romancing Mr. Bridgerton - Julia Quinn

YES. I love love love Penelope Featherington.

17. The Bride - Julie Garwood

DOUBLE YES. One of my favorite medievals of all time!

18. Mr. Perfect - Linda Howard
19. Naked In Death - J.D. Robb

I haven't tried J.D. Robb's books, but NAKED IN DEATH is on my to-be-read shelf

20. A Summer To Remember - Mary Balogh
21. Nobody's Baby But Mine - Susan Elizabeth Phillips

This may be my top contemporary book -- perhaps because I'm such a nerd, so the idea of a physicist marrying a smart, sexy NFL quarterback is my dream come true

22. Dream Man - Linda Howard
23. The Raven Prince - Elizabeth Hoyt
24. Paradise - Judith McNaught
25. As You Desire - Connie Brockway
26. MacKenzie's Mountain - Linda Howard
27. Dark Lover - J.R. Ward
28. The Secret - Julie Garwood

I've read this, but can't remember it

29. Son Of The Morning - Linda Howard
30. Lover Eternal - J.R. Ward
31. Devil's Bride - Stephanie Laurens

YES. Ms. Laurens' Cynster series got a little repetitive, but when I read this one it was all fresh and lovely, and Devil Cynster is a great hero.

32. A Knight in Shining Armor - Jude Deveraux
33. Heaven, Texas - Susan Elizabeth Phillips

Good, but not my favorite SEP

34. To Have and To Hold - Patricia Gaffney
35. Almost Heaven - Judith McNaught
36. Match Me If You Can - Susan Elizabeth Phillips

Eh, not so much

37. The Shadow and The Star - Laura Kinsale
38. Cry No More - Linda Howard
39. A Kingdom of Dreams - Judith McNaught
40. Over the Edge - Suzanne Brockmann
41. Sea Swept - Nora Roberts
42. Ravished - Amanda Quick

I'm sure I read it, but can't remember it

43. Then Came You - Lisa Kleypas
44. To Die For - Linda Howard
45. Something Wonderful - Judith McNaught
46. This Heart of Mine - Susan Elizabeth Phillips

YES. I loved this book; again, the idea of a children's book writer falling in love with a smart, sexy NFL quarterback (sense a theme?) was lovely. But in this book, the emotions were a bit more heartrending, which I enjoyed tremendously.

47. The Serpent Prince - Elizabeth Hoyt
48. Suddenly You - Lisa Kleypas
49. The Proposition - Judith Ivory
50. Honors Splendor - Julie Garwood

I read this and remember liking it.

51. Saving Grace - Julie Garwood
52. Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte

Yes, although not as much of a "yes" as PRIDE AND PREJUDICE.

53. When He Was Wicked - Julia Quinn

Yes, although it didn't encourage me to read it again and again like ROMANCING MR. BRIDGERTON

54. Persuasion - Jane Austen
55. All Through The Night - Connie Brockway
56. It Happened One Autumn - Lisa Kleypas
57. Born In Fire - Nora Roberts

I think I liked this one, but preferred BORN IN ICE

58. Thunder and Roses - Mary Jo Putney
59. Kiss An Angel - Susan Elizabeth Phillips

Eh - I wasn't a big fan of this one

60. Out Of Control - Suzanne Brockmann
61. After The Night - Linda Howard
62. Lady Sophia's Lover - Lisa Kleypas
63. The Secret Pearl - Mary Balogh
64. Once and Always - Judith McNaught
65. More Than A Mistress - Mary Balogh
66. Untie My Heart - Judith Ivory
67. See Jane Score - Rachel Gibson
68. The Rake - Mary Jo Putney
69. Dragonfly in Amber - Diana Gabaldon
70. Perfect - Judith McNaught
71. Whitney, My Love - Judith McNaught

Read this summer on the recommendation of a friend -- they sure don't write them like they used to. The super-alpha older hero and the young girl has gone out of fashion, which is probably a good thing, but I like reading throwbacks sometimes.

72. The Duke - Gaelen Foley
73. One Perfect Rose - Mary Jo Putney
74. Shattered Rainbows - Mary Jo Putney
75. The Windflower - Laura London
76. Dream A Little Dream - Susan Elizabeth Phillips

I liked this one, but it was almost too heartrending -- a widow and a widower (who also lost his child) are just a bit too heavy for your average contemporary romance.

77. Frederica - Georgette Heyer

I love Georgette Heyer, and this was a good one

78. Passion - Lisa Valdez
79. Voyager - Diana Gabaldon
80. The Lady's Tutor - Robin Schone
81. Morning Glory - Lavryle Spencer
82. Worth Any Price - Lisa Kleypas
83. Winter Garden - Adele Ashworth
84. My Dearest Enemy - Connie Brockway
85. Where Dreams Begin - Lisa Kleypas
86. Devil's Cub - Georgette Heyer

DOUBLE YES. Love the hero, love the heroine, love the setting (England + pre-Revolution France), love the hero's family (particularly his father, the duke of Avon, and his mother Leonie, who both starred in THESE OLD SHADES). If only Heyer had written sex scenes :)

87. Gone Too Far - Suzanne Brockmann
88. Anyone But You - Jennifer Crusie
89. For My Lady's Heart - Laura Kinsale
90. Rising Tides - Nora Roberts
91. Lover Revealed - J. R. Ward
92. Open Season - Linda Howard
93. Born In Ice - Nora Roberts

I loved this one - innkeeper of a small Irish bed and breakfast falls in love with the brooding writer who stays with her for the winter. Great stuff.

94. Ransom - Julie Garwood

Yes!

95. Venetia - Georgette Heyer

Yes!

96. Miss Wonderful - Loretta Chase
97. Ain't She Sweet - Susan Elizabeth Phillips

YES. I adored this book, and think this might be SEP at her peak. Some of the scenes are visceral and difficult to read, since they are flashbacks to rather awful high school experiences, but she does a great job with making the hero and heroine both flawed and incredibly lovable. Must read.

98. The Notorious Rake - Mary Balogh
99. The Prize - Julie Garwood
100. Slave To Sensation - Nalini Singh

Clearly the top 100 doesn't have everyone's favorites. For me, the biggest miss is Johanna Lindsay -- where is GENTLE ROGUE? Where are the other Mallory books, the Viking books, and the only Westerns that I ever liked? The other big miss for me is Catherine Coulter -- perhaps not because the books had real quality, but the Sherbrooke books and her absolutely hilariously ridiculous medievals will always have a fond place in my heart.

What are your favorites? Who do you think is missing? Do any of these surprise you?