This post's purpose is to collect my common tags in one place, so readers (and I!) can easily access entries on several subjects.

C.S. Harris, When Gods Die: A Sebastian St. Cyr Mystery: I loved this one, second in the series, too; I wasn't all on fire with discovery while reading, but it was still really good and I was never bored, and since I read it so close to the first one, that's an achievement. The best part was that the ongoing love interest and investigative contributor, Kat Boleyn, was very, very smart in this one and I love her a lot.

Christine Merrill, An Unladylike Offer: Oh, this was fun. Esme has escaped from an abusive father and run to the arms of the rakish St. John, who has Napoleonic Wars angst and is getting himself hooked on laudanum while trying to reform himself and reconnect with his brother, to whom he did Bad Things--there is a distinct hint of Dorothy Dunnett in their conflict, which I loved.

Janet Mullany, The Rules of Gentility: I totally recommend this to anyone who is fond of Regency romances and also has a sense of humor about them. I was laughing every few paragraphs except for one scary section.

The book is described as Bridget Jones' Diary for the Regency, and that's reasonably accurate.

Philomena Wellesley-Clegg--no, not ofthose Wellesleys--is a connoisseur of bonnets and looking for a husband, but the ones on offer aren't thrilling her. Her family owns a coal mine, which is making their house subside. Inigo Linsley is the brother-in-law of her closest friend, and he is very scruffy and rakish, and they are instantly attracted. Even though this is satire, I still rooted for them the whole way.

I am way behind on writing up the romances I've been reading.

Joanna Bourne's The Spymaster's Lady: I adore romances set during the Napoleonic Wars. This one opens with a female French spy being held captive by an Evil French Spy who wants the invasion plans with which he believes she's been entrusted. Also in the cell are two English spies, both male, on badly injured. She is dead set on escaping, and will even deal with her enemies to do so. I didn't love the rest of the book as much as the opening because of some Romance Tropes, but I still enjoyed it. ( Very large spoilers. )

oyceter, you in particular should read this!

Read a cute Regency yesterday, Nancy Butler's The Ramshackle Suitor. Towards the end, it had all the intricacy, and possibly more, of a Georgette Heyer romp. If I were the author, I would've had to use diagrams. Though I guessed some elements of the ending, it was still fun to watch them slot into place. I was okay with some handy psychic dreams.

Other things I liked about it: Heroine (30) was older than hero (25). Hero was sweet, funny, youngest child of seven, and a rescuer of things, but also had flaws. Heroine spent a little time denying her feelings, but she had good reason for it, and never denied that she would like to have the hero, if only circumstances changed. And all of the characters, even the minor ones, had a touch of reality to them by the end.

Phyllida and the Brotherhood of Philander: A Bisexual Regency Romance, Ann Herendeen.

The copy I have was published by AuthorHouse [self-pub], but the author's website notes, "Phyllida will be coming out as a Harper Paperback in summer 2008." I'm wondering if the Harper version will be edited down, as the original is quite a brick, and involves a number of standard plots [the Big Misunderstanding, the Virgin's Awakening/Man Gets a Clue, Spies for the French!, Woman Finds Her Backbone!, Adorable SubPlot Couples, SubPlot Villain Redeemed! (sort of)] that might be broken out into separate books. It's fun as a brick, though. All those plot standards had to be present in order to be subverted. Subversions happen with varying degrees of success.

( Spoilers. )

Have now e-mailed off an electronic copy of "Lip Service" and a bio to the editor of BWE.

Bought the new Laura Kinsale (Shadowheart), though I don't plan to read it until my rewrite is done; also the new Susan Grant, another sf romance.

Recent wordcounts:

Friday 541.
Saturday 530 in the morning and 646 in the afternoon.
Sunday, 665 this morning.
12,551 to go, of my estimated wordcount needed to finish the novel-shaped object.

Am reading Jo Goodman's All I Ever Needed, another Regency historical. This one is part of a series about the "Compass Club," except the books are all supposed to be happening simultaneously. It's an interesting exercise to see how she does this; I have two more in the series of four waiting for me. The simultaneity might account for the first few pages, which felt like I'd been dropped into a play in progress. I caught on fairly quickly, but there wasn't much setup.

Goodman has an interesting style. I think she might rather be writing omniscient point of view; her third person is even shallower than mine, which is saying something. I'm not even halfway through the book and I already have noticed several times we seem to be looking at a pov character from across the room--it's word choice more than actual pov slippage that gives me this impression of distance.

I'm enjoying the fact that she has a villain with depth and true nastiness, abusive in a way that he totally justifies to himself and that the heroine fights in a reasoned if not entirely successful manner. She hasn't done anything foolish yet, which in a romance novel is a big accomplishment!

House-sat for L. last night.

Progress report for yesterday: nil. Zip. Zilch. Nada. Possibly will be the same today, though I wrote a couple of meaningless sentences on the bus in to work this morning. I must shake off this lethargy soon, so I can get back to pushing for my end of May self-imposed deadline.

Finished Mary Balogh's The Christmas Bride and was pleasantly surprised to find it was a sequel to A Precious Jewel, something I hadn't caught on to until the big reveal. I knew it was linked to a number of her other Regencies--past heroes and heroines and their many offspring cluttered the landscape wherever I looked--but I just didn't remember the name of this novel's heroine wasn't new until prompted with a big stick. In both those books, Balogh addresses issues of consent and betrayal of trust, trespassing and forgiveness. Most Regency authors don't bother.