marikitORG random thoughts, some nuts and bolts

9Dec/100

AAR’s Top 100 Romance Books (2010)

Now that AAR released a new Top 100 Romance Books why not re-do the Romance Novel Meme! The last romance novel meme I did was actually based on their 2004 results. And so without further ado, here it is.

Bold are read. Bold and underlined are personal favorites. Italics are in my TBR pile.

  1. Lord of Scoundrels (Loretta Chase)
  2. Dreaming of You (Lisa Kleypas)
  3. Devil In Winter (Lisa Kleypas)
  4. Pride and Prejudice (Jane Austen)
  5. Outlander (Diana Gabaldon)
  6. Flowers From The Storm (Laura Kinsale)
  7. Slightly Dangerous (Mary Balogh)
  8. The Viscount Who Loved Me (Julia Quinn)
  9. The Raven Prince (Elizabeth Hoyt)
  10. The Madness of Lord Ian Mackenzie (Jennifer Ashley)
  11. Mr. Impossible (Loretta Chase)
  12. Romancing Mr. Bridgerton (Julia Quinn)
  13. Paradise (Judith McNaught)
  14. Lord Perfect (Loretta Chase)
  15. It Had To Be You (Susan Elizabeth Phillips)
  16. Bet Me (Jennifer Crusie)
  17. The Duke and I (Julia Quinn)
  18. Not Quite a Husband (Sherry Thomas)
  19. The Bride (Julie Garwood)
  20. The Spymaster's Lady (Joanna Bourne)
  21. A Kingdom of Dreams (Judith McNaught)
  22. Heaven, Texas (Susan Elizabeth Phillips)
  23. Mr. Perfect (Linda Howard)
  24. Naked In Death (J.D. Robb)
  25. Blue Eyed Devil (Lisa Kleypas)
  26. It Happened One Autumn (Lisa Kleypas)
  27. Lover Awakened (J.R. Ward)
  28. Nobody's Baby But Mine (Susan Elizabeth Phillips)
  29. Almost Heaven (Judith McNaught)
  30. Suddenly You (Lisa Kleypas)
  31. MacKenzie's Mountain (Linda Howard)
  32. A Summer To Remember (Mary Balogh)
  33. When He Was Wicked (Julia Quinn)
  34. Smooth Talking Stranger (Lisa Kleypas)
  35. Persuasion (Jane Austen)
  36. Welcome to Temptation (Jennifer Crusie)
  37. Jane Eyre (Charlotte Bronte)
  38. Whitney My Love (Judith McNaught)
  39. Honor's Splendour (Julie Garwood)
  40. This Heart of Mine (Susan Elizabeth Phillips)
  41. The Secret Pearl (Mary Balogh)
  42. Match Me If You Can (Susan Elizabeth Phillips)
  43. Kiss An Angel (Susan Elizabeth Phillips)
  44. The Serpent Prince (Elizabeth Hoyt)
  45. Perfect (Judith McNaught)
  46. Ravished (Amanda Quick)
  47. Dream Man (Linda Howard)
  48. As You Desire (Connie Brockway)
  49. Private Arrangements (Sherry Thomas)
  50. See Jane Score (Rachel Gibson)
  51. Slave To Sensation (Nalini Singh)
  52. Sugar Daddy (Lisa Kleypas)
  53. Dream A Little Dream (Susan Elizabeth Phillips)
  54. Then Came You (Lisa Kleypas)
  55. After The Night (Linda Howard)
  56. Lady Sophia's Lover (Lisa Kleypas)
  57. Lover Eternal (J.R. Ward)
  58. Devil's Bride (Stephanie Laurens)
  59. Morning Glory (LaVyrle Spencer)
  60. To Have and To Hold (Patricia Gaffney)
  61. The Secret (Julie Garwood)
  62. Something Wonderful (Judith McNaught)
  63. The Proposition (Judith Ivory)
  64. Ransom (Julie Garwood)
  65. Passion (Lisa Valdez)
  66. The Last Hellion (Loretta Chase)
  67. Love in the Afternoon (Lisa Kleypas)
  68. To Beguile A Beast (Elizabeth Hoyt)
  69. Where Dreams Begin (Lisa Kleypas)
  70. Devil's Cub (Georgette Heyer)
  71. A Knight in Shining Armor (Jude Deveraux)
  72. Once and Always (Judith McNaught)
  73. Natural Born Charmer (Susan Elizabeth Phillips)
  74. Sea Swept (Nora Roberts)
  75. Seduce Me At Sunrise (Lisa Kleypas)
  76. Dark Lover (J.R. Ward)
  77. A Hunger Like No Other (Kresley Cole)
  78. More Than A Mistress (Mary Balogh)
  79. What Happens In London (Julia Quinn)
  80. Cry No More (Linda Howard)
  81. Over the Edge (Suzanne Brockmann)
  82. Open Season (Linda Howard)
  83. The Shadow and The Star (Laura Kinsale)
  84. Saving Grace (Julie Garwood)
  85. Worth Any Price (Lisa Kleypas)
  86. My Dearest Enemy (Connie Brockway)
  87. Ain't She Sweet (Susan Elizabeth Phillips)
  88. Thunder and Roses (Mary Jo Putney)
  89. To Die For (Linda Howard)
  90. All Through The Night (Connie Brockway)
  91. The Rake (Mary Jo Putney)
  92. The Leopard Prince (Elizabeth Hoyt)
  93. Voyager (Diana Gabaldon)
  94. The Duke of Shadows (Meredith Duran)
  95. Untie My Heart (Judith Ivory)
  96. Bound By Your Touch (Meredith Duran)
  97. Angels' Blood (Nalini Singh)
  98. Married by Morning (Lisa Kleypas)
  99. And Then He Kissed Her (Laura Lee Guhrke)
  100. Scandal In Spring (Lisa Kleypas)

I've read 51 titles in it! Yay! More than half! 21 of which are books that I really love. ♥ Loretta Chase is already in my TBR list but it's kinda hard to get a hold of her backlist. Whenever I see Lisa Kleypas' contemporary titles, I always have second thoughts if I should read it or not. I guess since they're in this list that means that she won't disappoint at all. So I'm adding that to my TBR pile too. At least now, I have a few more books to kick-off my 2011 reading. :D

Mood: lovedloved
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28Oct/100

The Lion’s Daughter by Loretta Chase

Loretta Chase - The Lion's DaughterThis is my first book for Loretta Chase. I have known about her since I've seen one of her books taking the top spot in the Top100 of the AAR. But instead of diving into the middle of the series for her, I'll try to traverse her backlist sequentially. So, I'm starting with The Lion's Daughter, her first book in her Scoundrel's series.

The Lion's Daughter
Loretta Chase
B

The story started out really slow. But when the hero, Edenmont, and the heroine, Esme, finally met it picked up. Edenmont's a lord who had no money to his name and is living off others. You could say that he whore's himself to live. Esme is the daughter of the Red Lion, a disgraced Englishman who moved to Albania and helped Albania's leader in maintaining peace. Esme's mind is filled with revenge when she learned that the Red Lion was killed by the man who wants to make her his bride. The story is not your typical romance novel, hero meets heroine, misunderstanding, fall in love, live happily ever after. Though of course, this being a romance novel, there is still that element of love but aside from that a big chunk of the story revolves around the intrigues and deception in Albanian politics.

A good thing about the book were the characters' development, more particularly Edenmont's. A typical romance novel will give you a perfect hero with a perfect heroine. But like I said, Edenmont's not your typical lord since he's penniless. When they arrive back in England, we learned that he was the one responsible for his situation, gambling and using up all the family's money. But he changed that by working hard and setting the family estate to rights in order to be able to make himself worthy of being a husband to Esme.

While I was reading this, I was expecting a really light read that I can just set my mind off and breeze through the story. Was I wrong! This was my first Loretta Chase book. For me, there are times when I found her too wordy. I guess I wasn't really prepared for that. But that won't deter me from reading her other books because I really did like how her novel incorporates other themes and not just mainly focused on the relationship between hero and heroine. But next time that I'm picking her up, I'll have to psych and get myself in the mood for her first.

Mood: complacentcomplacent
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5Oct/100

Elizabeth Hoyt’s Wicked Intentions

Elizabeth Hoyt's Wicked IntentionsWicked Intentions
Elizabeth Hoyt
B+

I'm really really glad that I discovered Elizabeth Hoyt. [info]envyious recommended her Raven Prince to me last year. And from there, I devoured her backlist. So I was pretty much excited when I finally got my hands on the first book of her new series, Maiden Lane. And she didn't disappoint.

Temperance is a widower taking care of children in a foster home in St. Giles with her brother. She meets Lord Caire one night and he makes her a deal to help find a patron for the home in exchange for helping him in find who killed his mistress. One thing common about Hoyt's characters, they're not your common alpha, strong, rugged and perfect hero and dainty and beautiful damsel-in-distress heroine. Caire is known for his bondage kink. He also has this less than stellar relationship with his mother. Aside from those he's suffering from a psychosomatic illness of feeling pain when touched. Yes, it's just psychological. I asked. Temperance harbors a dark secret. When her husband died, she was on her way home from her lover's bed. And because of this, she's suppresses her lascivious nature. Seeing the hero and heroine's interaction and relationship progress was kinda interesting. But more than that what got me really intrigued was the Ghost of St. Giles, Lady Hero and Charming Mickey.

I would best describe Lady Hero as the epitome of a lady. She's a duke's daughter who, aside from being a beauty, is kind as well. But even being that perfect, it seems like she scares her potential beaux away. Charming Mickey is a renowned thief who can charm the pants out of you. He was the one who stole Temperance's sister, Silence' husband's cargo. In exchange for returning it, he made Silence stay the night at his place. Silence claimed that nothing happened between her and Mickey but her husband didn't believe her. And so, the words of Mickey rang through Silence' mind. That if her husband loves her, no matter what happens, he will believe her. Now, the Ghost of St. Giles is like London's own Zorro, a masked hero who traverses St. Giles at the middle of the night fighting those who prey upon the weak. Throughout this book, we never get a big reveal who he was. So I'm thinking he'll be a staple throughout the series. I do have a couple of speculations that are more than likely wrong. Initially, I thought that Lady Hero could be the Ghost. He doesn't speak at all so I thought that it might be because he's hiding the fact that he could be a girl all along. Imagine that! A swashbuckling heroine that could hold her own against numerous thugs! I really want to see something like that some time in my romance novels. Another possibility is it could be Mickey. Being a thief could just be a front to something else, you wouldn't know.

And with that, I am really looking forward to more from this series. Hoping it's February already and Notorious Pleasures is out on the shelves. Lady Hero would be our next heroine and that made me really happy. But what made me even more excited for it was the awesomeness of the preview in the back of Wicked Intentions. The banters and initial meeting between Hero and Griffin looks interesting and made me want to read more on them.

But for now, as for this book, it's a good read. The characters are diverse and interesting. Though the story maybe a bit slow at the start, the pace actually picks up after a few chapters. The main plot might be a bit short. And I found that there are some things that I would have like to be explained or expounded on. But then, I think it's possible that some of these points that I want explanation on might be found in the succeeding books.

Mood: boredbored
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marikitORG

This is the random musings and thoughts of an average girl who goes by the name of Teckie though sometimes she's more commonly known as Tec. She loves anime, manga, video games, movies and romance novels. She's obsessing over Jensen Ackles and wishes that one of these days that they go off and marry... or at least have some hot sex together. Since she's a flighty and ecclectic little girl, you'll find her lurking in numerous other fandoms.


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