Goodbye 2019

“But since it fell unto my lot
That I should rise and you should not
I gently rise and softly call
Good night and joy be to you all”

Well, this has been another interesting year in Romanceland. I have a question. Do the years ever get better? I’ve been waiting for a long time for a golden year of books, similar to the golden year of 1939 movies.  I will not be a complete curmudgeon; there were some bright spots this year. A couple of debut authors soared onto the scene: Mia Vincy and Edie Dunmore. Technically, Mia launched her career last year, but I wanted to squeeze as many good books into this year as possible. So, I’m counting her as a debut author this year. So there.

This year I once again had to turn to the Wayback Machine numerous times. I started a lot of new books, then put them down because they just didn’t grab me. I am once again whining about the inability to easily find sources for upcoming books. The same issues with publishing sources that I had last year still apply. I always feel that I’m missing a new book or author, I am just not able to find a reliable source, but I will keep on trying.

Voices we lost in 2019: Judith Krantz, Toni Morrison, Rosamunde Pilcher, Anne Rivers Siddons, and Lea Wait.

Debut authors who have crossed my radar in 2019: Georgie Blalock, Mary Bush, Eliza Casey, Kate Bateman, Molly Greeley, Catriona Innes, Lili Hayward, Lottie Lucas, Evie Dunmore, and Eva Shepherd. Congratulations!

2019 Outstanding Books. Even though I have stated this was a hard year for me when it came to finding a book I love, not all was lost. I did manage to find some that made me smile. There is/was some amazing storytelling in my Outstanding list. I was even introduced to authors I have never read before! Thanks to all those talented authors who were able to transport me to places I will never go. I wasn’t even bothered that there weren’t any bathrooms in some of those places. Sort of. In no particular order:

1.    Julie Anne Long, Angel in a Devil’s Arms, 2019
2.    Tessa Dare, The Wallflower Wager, 2019
3.    Deborah Simmons, The Unexpected Guest, 1999, short story
4.    Evie Dunnore, Bringing Down the Duke, 2019
5.    Virginia Heath, A Warriner to Seduce Her, 2018
6.    Virginia Heath, A Warriner to Rescue Her, 2018
7.    Julie Garwood, The Lion’s Lady, 1988
8.    Julie Garwood, The Guardian Angel, 1990
9.    Julie Garwood, The Gift, 1991
10.    Lisa Kleypas, Devil’s Daughter, 2019
11.    Mia Vincy, A Wicked Kind of Husband, 2019
12.    Marguerite Kaye, A Scandalous Winter Wedding, 2019
13.    Lorraine Heath, When a Duke Loves a Woman, 2019
14.    Kelly Bowen, Night of the Scoundrel, 2019, short story 
 
Disappointing books of 2019. There are a number of reasons a story will make my disappointing book list, and they are all my reasons. The list is all about me, me, me.  Everyone else in the world may have liked one of these books; the book may even have won some awards. However, for whatever reason, I was disappointed in these stories. Maybe a book pushed one of my many buttons. Maybe I found that a book did not hold up well over time. Maybe there was no chemistry between the hero or heroine, maybe the narrative was choppy and disjointed. There may be many, many reasons for their appearance on my disappointing list. This does not mean that I will never read a particular author again; it just means that on this occasion, a particular book was just not a winner for me.

1.    Betina Krahn, Behind Closed Doors, 1991
2.    Anthology, Winter Wishes, 2019
3.    Madeline Hunter, Sabrina Jeffries, Mary Jo Putney, Seduction in a Snowy Night, 2019
4.    Anne Gracie, Marry in Secret, 2019
5.    Mary Balogh, Someone to Honor, 2019
6.    Virginia Heath, The Determined Lord Hardleigh, 2019
7.    Virginia Heath, The Uncompromising Lord Flint, 2018
8.    Madeline Hunter, Never Deny a Duke, 2019
9.    Valerie Bowman, No Other Duke But You, 2019
10.    Lisa Kleypas, Tempt Me at Twilight, 2009 - 3
11.    Lisa Kleypas, Seduce Me at Sunrise, 2008 - 2
12.    Lisa Kleypas, Mine Till Midnight, 2007 - 1
13.    Karen Ranney, To Wed a Heiress, 2019
14.    Sophie Barnes, The Infamous Duchess, 2019
15.    Suzanne Enoch, It's Getting Scot in Here, 2019
16.    Jennifer Ashley, The Devilish Lord Will, 2019

On to my prestigious awards.
 
No More Wire Hangers, aka 2019 Mommie Dearest Award.  

There are a plethora of horrible families in Romanceland books. There are tons of mean relatives just waiting to make the lives of our heroes or heroines miserable.  There is no age limit on these losers, and they can be male or female. They can be oblivious fathers, conniving mothers, wastrel brothers, self-centered sisters, or spoiled cousins. It doesn’t matter. There are always plenty of dysfunctional family members waiting to make everything gloomy. 
My nominations for 2019:
1.    Gilbert, from Bringing Down the Duke, by Evie Dunmore. Yes, I realize Gilbert isn’t a mother, but he’s still family. He likes having his cousin around so he doesn’t have to pay for a servant. He also does some psychological bullying.
2.    Serena’s brother, from Lorraine Heath’s The Duchess in His Bed. What we have in this book is the typical gambling wastrel brother who uses his sister to pay his debts.
3.    Another brother gone wrong! From Brazen and the Beast, by Sarah MacLean. In this case the brother is not only a wastrel, he’s a stupid one. He conks very dangerous men on the head, and then depends on his sister to get him out of the trouble he’s caused. Is he grateful in the end? What do you think? Is he punished? Nah, this is Romanceland.
4.    Finally, a mother is in the group of nominations. And, she’s a doozy of a mother. She is a loathsome, bullying woman who will not let her daughter breathe without her permission. This gem of a woman is from Valerie Bowman’s No Other Duke But You.
5.    Welcome to Karen Ranney’s world of horrible secondary characters. There were a number of people to choose from for the Mommie Dearest in this book. Some of the people in this story have a touch of villainy about them. In the end, I chose to put the grandmother from To Wed an Heiress into the Mommie Dearest category. This woman was not anyone's dream of what a grandmother should be. She did not make any peanut butter cookies for her granddaughter. She was hateful to Mercy. Sometimes families are not really families.
6.    And the winner!! My pick for this year’s Mommie Dearest Award is not necessarily a mean mother, but she is loathsome nonetheless. From It's Getting Scot in Here, by Suzanne Enoch comes Francesca Oswell. I had a real issue with Francesca. Francesca leaves all of her sons in Scotland, packs up her daughter and moves to England where her greatest desire is to be in society. Then when her sons are old enough to become heroes, she decides she must have control over them, must be in their lives, and must find wives for them. She manipulates them, blackmails them, pouts, demands, bullies, and never once shows anything but her own selfish character. I’m assuming she will be redeemed in future books in the series, but I found her to be a horrible mother.

2019 Steve Morgan Bonehead Hero Award. 

Ah yes, the hero we love to hate. He is usually an alpha male; he is jealous, possessive, controlling, and arrogant. He can never forget his first love, does not listen to heroines, calls her nicknames like Wren, Little One, Carrot Top, and Button Nose. He is an all-around jerk. In real life, they may look handsome from afar, but look out when their mouth opens up. The Steve Morgan Bonehead is a creature who should have left this world in the 1970s, but I fear he is still lurking under the weeds. My nominations for the 2019 Boneheads are:
1.    Rugar Killisson from Betina Krahn’s, Behind Closed Doors. Yes, I know this book was written in 1991, but still it surprised me that such a bonehead was written in the 90s. On top of all the bonehead attributes to choose from, he was also set on revenge.
2.    The change-your-mind a gazillion times bonehead. From Marry in Secret, by Anne Gracie comes Thomas Beresford. He returns from the dead, wants his wife back, then he does not, then he does, then he does not. Of course, he will not let her have any other man. What a boob.
3.    Introducing the dense bonehead. From The Uncompromising Lord Flint, by Virginia Heath. This bonehead is not only stupid, but he is arrogant, and not trusting of too many people, including our heroine. Maybe that is why he is a member of the elite Elmer Fudd spies. He does not seem able to read peoples' characters, which actually might come in handy when you ares a spy. It is his way or no way, even when his way is wrong most of the time.
4.    Sometimes bonehead heroes are the kind of males who will not take any of the little woman’s money to help out. They would rather starve. They would rather see their company go down the tubes than appear needy. Such a bonehead exists in Julie Garwood’s Castles. Say hello to Colin, the hero who can never ask for help.
5.    From The Devilish Lord Will, by Jennifer Ashley. Whatever you do, my little Petunia’s, do not compare Will MacKenzie to Ian MacKenzie, because Will is definitely the loser. Will can never be with the woman he luves, until his plan works. By the way, he has had this plan for twelve years; he has never told anyone of importance what his plan is. That group of important people includes the heroine. Sure, sure, his family was on the defeated side at Culloden, but never once did he trust the heroine enough to confide in her. He was a real stubborn moron.
6.    From Seduce Me at Sunrise, by Lisa Kleypas, welcome aboard Kev. The I-am-not-good-enough because I’m a boo-hoo bonehead. Kev may not want the heroine for himself, but no one else can have her. 
7.    The winner of the 2019 Steve Morgan Bonehead Award is: Harry from Tempt Me at Twilight, by Lisa Kleypas. There seemed to be an extraordinarily large amount of boneheads in Ms. Kleypas’ Hathaway series. Yes, the book is from 2009, but since I read it again this year, it qualifies. After all, I make the rules. Once I started reading, it did not take me too long to remember Harry. And how much I disliked him. Harry is a stinker. He is a detestable hero, he is obsessed, possessive, and he will play any trick he can to have the heroine. His obsession makes him cruel, and in my opinion, he is not what a hero should be.

Sidekicks, aka Secondary Characters, aka Supporting Cast of 2019. 

Where would the leads in a romance be without their supporting cast? First of all, there would only be two people in a book, and while that might make it easier for me to remember who is who, that isn’t the way things work in Romanceland. No sirree, there has to be a supporting cast, because there must be sequels. This award recognizes the bad and the good secondary character. Puleese, don’t forget the ones who steal the show. Here are the sidekicks who caught my eye:
1.    We have a whole bunch of supporting characters in the deBurgh family in Deborah Simmons' 1995 book, Taming the Wolf. They all have different foibles, angst, and tenderness. In addition, they all have big thighs.
2.    Sometimes secondary characters can overwhelm stories, as was the case in the short story anthology of Winters Wishes. Way tooooo many people in all of these stories.
3.    What a wonderful creepy, gothic secondary character by the name of Mrs. Burns. She managed to make a paranoid secretary even more so. From Tessa Dare’s The Wallflower’s Wager, Mrs. Burns was a scene-stealer.
4.    In Evie Dunmore’s debut novel, Bringing Down the Duke, we are introduced to a group of strong women who are friends. I look forward to Ms. Dunmore's further enhancements of her series; she has some amazing insight into female friendships. Also from the same book is the truly wonderful character of Professor Jenkins. I hope he will get his own book…puleese Ms. Dunmore.
5.    From Marry in Secret, by Anne Gracie, we have a scene-stealer by the name of Duke of Everingham. What a cold fish, what a block of ice, what a hunk waiting to be melted.
6.    Another group of big-thigh brothers are in the Warriner series by Virginia Heath. They of course all got their own books, but before that they were supporting characters.
7.    A case of overabundance of characters in Someone to Honor, by Mary Balogh is/was a big problem. I could not remember who did what to who, or when, or where. Puleese we really do not have to know what happens to alllll of your characters Ms. Balogh.
8.    In Eloisa James’ Say No to the Duke we have another stuffed shirt in the person of Thaddeus Erskine Shaw, Viscount Greywick. He loses the girl to the hero in this story, but he is a wonderful character, and I hope Ms. James gives him his own story…and does not kill him off. She has a tendency to kill off characters I like.
9.    Leo, the boo-hoo drunk from Tempt Me at Twilight, by Lisa Kleypas. He was such an appealing character; he stole the show from the rest of the men in the series. Leo finally got his own book, which in my opinion was the best in the series.
10.    We have a boatload of colorful secondary characters in Julie Garwood’s The Guardian Angel. From the pirate Black Harry to the feisty butler Stern, these people were a lot of fun, and made this novel a page-turner.
11.    Children have been known to steal scenes. And, that is just what happens in When a Duke Loves a Woman, by Lorraine Heath. There is a wonderful orphan by the name of Robin. Robin forms a strong relationship with our hero Thorne. The chemistry between Thorne and Robin was so poignant, it could bring a tear to one’s eyes. There were some amazing scenes between the two of them, great writing.
12.    The winner is Mr. Delacorte from Julie Anne Long’s, Angel in a Devil’s Arms. Even though this man was in her first book in the Palace of Rogues series, I remembered him. He was funny, outrageous and always seems to say the wrong thing. Besides that who could forget someone who sales ground-up testicles.

Garlic Breath Award of 2019. 

Yes, it is time to recognize the villains, because where would our heroes be without someone who is threatening our heroine, or vise-versa. If a character with garlic breath shows up in Romanceland, watch out! You can just bet that they are the villains. They may even have yellow teeth. I do not like my villains to be quite that recognizable, although I have given my award to some villains with garlic problems. There is nothing better than an outrageous, well-written villain, even with a taste for garlic. 
1.    From Taming the Wolf, by Deborah Simmons, we have the villain who could have been a future hero. The author could have taken him down a different path in just a few short sentences. However, she did not. Not only is he a villain, but a best friend betrayer.
2.    The, not-so-secret villain from Anne Gracie’s, Marry in Secret. The villain in this book should have been obvious to everyone, but the hero just could not figure things out, even when they were right in front of his face. I am not sure if the villain was just that smart or the hero was just that dense.
3.    Ewan, Duke of Marwick, from Sarah MacLean’s, Brazen and the Beast. Ewan has been in all of the Bareknuckle books, and he has been simply awful. He is obsessed, a little crazy, and seems to be doing some deadly things to his family. But is he really? Only time will tell. Will Ms. MacLean be able to pull a hero out of the villain hat? For right now, he is still a villain.
4.    The superfluous villain. In Say No to the Duke, by Eloisa James, a crazy villain was added to the story. And, that, my little Petunia’s, warrants the nomination. Sometimes there is not any reason to add a villain. Sometimes the story is doing just fine without the distraction of a cartoon-bug-eyed villain.
5.    The heel-clicking Prussian from Betina Krahn’s The Girl with the Sweetest Secret. Heel clicking comes in pretty close to garlic breath as a sign of badness.
6.    The villain who is always one step ahead of the spies. Maybe Comte de Saint-Aubin-de-Sallon was that smart; maybe the spies were just that dumb. This villain I remembered because he was so much smarter than the good guy-Elmer Fudd spies from The Uncompromising Lord Flint, by Virginia Heath.
7.    The winner of the 2019 Garlic Breath award is the Reverend Reeves from the Warriner series by Virginia Heath. He is introduced in A Warriner to Rescue Her, and he is truly loathsome. His sermons are filled with venom; he is a hateful, bible-thumping zealot. He even has a number of the villagers on his side, which was very disturbing. He gave me the willies.  

The 2019 Gus Award. 

Now we turn to those lovable creatures who inhabit our books. Those wonderful animals who are there for the hero to trip over, or for our heroines to save from the evil guy with the whip. Sometimes they are there for comic relief, and sometimes they are there for an awwww moment. For whatever reason, they steal scenes. The Gus awards are named after the dog in Jill Barnett’s Dreaming: the best part of that book.
1.    From Tessa Dare’s The Wallflower Wager we have a ton of contenders. From kittens, to the dog with no legs, to the fat goat. They were all memorable, but the fat goat stole the show when it became apparent she wasn’t fat, just pregnant, and a bunch of manly-men were forced to come to her rescue.
2.    The continuing character of Dodger the ferret in Lisa Kleypas’ Hathaway family series. This was one of the characters I did like in a mostly disappointing series.
3.    The scene stealing cat, Galoshes from Lisa Kleypas', Devil’s Daughter. I suspect Ms. Kleypas might have a cat or two in her household which serve as examples.
4.    The 2019 Gus Award winner is one of my favorites. From A Warriner to Rescue Her, by Virginia Heath comes Orange Blossom. Orange Blossom is a fictional horse in children stories composed by our heroine. The heroine has created a charming story of misadventures seen through the eyes of a horse. I was delighted with the tales of Orange Blossom.

And now for the award you’ve all been waiting for. It’s like the Oscar for best picture isn’t it…sort of. Well, maybe not. Yes, yes, yes, it’s time for the 2019 Timothy Toad Award. Thank goodness I had a Wayback Machine to use, because there seemed to be a certain lack of protrusions in most of the new books I’ve read this year. So, let’s take a look at some of those attention grabbing bulges and their buddies.
1.    Oh, those big thighs! I’ve come across a lot of big thighs in my books this year. We all know that the author isn’t really talking about big thighs, but other lumps in trousers. In Deborah Simmons, Taming of the Wolf, there seems to be a really big thigh. Hopefully, Dunstan has two matching thighs, because only one would make it hard to sit on a horse. He’s also just one of many brothers, all of which have big thighs. No wonder Lady Marion is a bit overwhelmed.
2.    The, I-want-it-my-way Mr. Toad. This toad belongs Aiden Trewlove from The Duchess in My Bed, by Lorraine Heath. Aiden is a strong alpha male who seems to have passed his characteristics down to his Doodle Toad. He doesn’t want any children, so it’s in out, in, out, in, out, out, out, out, which makes for lots and lots of hot sex.
3.    One of the Warriner brothers from Virginia Heath’s A Warriner to Seduce has a Mr. Toad that should have fallen off a long time ago. This big fella thinks he can charm anyone, but is he in for a shock.
4.    The Camping Toad from The Uncompromising Lord Flint, by Virginia Heath. This toad has an itty-bitty brain which causes his owner to walk around with a tent in his trousers, banging into walls, through the entire book.
5.    An energetic Mr. Toad tries to save a story, but can’t. Yes, in Not the Duke’s Darling, by Elizabeth Hoyt, Christopher’s little toady guy tries, and tries to create some kind of chemistry. Eventually, he hides his head in shame, because you can’t create a spark just by humpin-and-bumpin. Unless, of course, you’re a match.
6.    And the 2019 Mr. Toad winner is an entire group. Yes! I’m so excited! I may have palpitations! Julie Garwood’s entire Crown Spies series is filled with giant gargantuan thighs,…ur toads. It’s almost overwhelming. There’s bouncing all over the place, and if you read the entire series one right after another, your eyes will have those spinning things from cartoons on them. Manly men equal manly toads!

So, farewell 2019. As I have every year, I keep hoping for some improvement. Here is my wish for the New Year. I am wishing for some more amazing debut authors. I wish for debut authors who can add a fresh voice to the standard historical romance narrative, and still maintain the historical feel. I wish some of my old auto-buy authors would reclaim their vitality and write more amazing, sigh-worthy stories. Do you think I am asking for too much? It is all about me, and my wishes. Although, I think that I may speak for a few other romance readers as well. Before I become tooooo much of a gloomy-gus, just let me add this: romance novels have come a long way, from the potboilers, to the ripping bodices, to the more sensitive tones. Sometimes it has been a bumpy ride, sometimes it has been controversial, but Romanceland is a special place. It is filled with unique people who are connected to each other by their love for the genre, and I would not have it any other way.