Authors' keeper authors: Abbi Glines, Laura Kinsale, Kylie Scott
We asked three Zebra authors — Cat Johnson, Kelly Long and Joanna Shupe — to give us a glimpse of their keeper books.
Cat Johnson, author of Midnight Ride
The selection is pretty diverse so don't get literary whiplash! Now that you've been warned, here we go ...
• Saddled and Spurred (Blacktop Cowboy Series) by Lorelei James features a rugged cattleman and a pampered beauty in a classic forced-proximity, opposites-attract romance set in picturesque Wyoming. It made me want to pack my bags and head West to find my own rancher.
• Fallen Too Far (Rosemary Beach Series) by Abbi Glines has a tough, hard-working, resilient young heroine I couldn't help but pull for and a hot but oh-so-bad, rich-boy hero I loved to hate. The best part is that Glines' newest release in this series features a cowboy hero, and you know those are near and dear to my heart.
• Reaper's Property (Reapers MC Series) by Joanna Wylde snuck up on me and I found myself up and still reading at 3 a.m. It's gritty. It's rough. There's nothing sweet about the hero (who is more of an anti-hero) or the life he lives, but I still stayed up late just to see if this couple would eventually get their happy ending.
About Midnight Ride:
One bucking bronco…
Oklahoma ranch hand Tyler Jenkins is too young, too sexy, and too damn wild to be tied down by any single woman—for more than a few steamy hours…
One hard-working widow…
Widowed rancher Janie Smithwick is too busy paying off her debts to play rodeo with a reckless young cowboy like Tyler—no matter how hot he gets her…
One midnight ride they'll never forget…
As a rule, Janie should be dating a man her own age, like her handsome neighbor Rohn—not the twenty-four-year old ranch hand he employs. But once Tyler gets Janie alone—held tight in his arms, pressed against his hard muscled body, burning with desire—the widow realizes that some rules, like broncos, are meant to be broken…
Kelly Long, author of The Amish Man of Ice Mountain
OK, my keeper shelf is going to reveal my age, but that's what books do sometimes …
• My first novel is LaVyrle Spencer's Hummingbird, because it so captures the dance of intimacy between characters in a romance:
She's had so little love, Jesse thought, I will drown her in it for the rest of her life.
This idea of being so encompassed by love is something we often search for all of our lives.
• And then there's Laura Kinsale's Uncertain Magic. Think this is the age of the paranormal? Think again … Laura was at it long ago with a midnight faerie ball that still lingers hauntingly in my memory.
• And Kathleen Woodiwiss' The Wolf and the Dove proves that the relationship between Normans and Saxons can positively sizzle and that ancient times can be made accessible to romance fans today.
And where is my own writing? That edgy Amish romance I keep pushing the limits on? About three shelves down … It would never do to have it sit with these masters of the art, and I am fine with that. After all, I have the grand opportunity to keep growing in the crafting of words and ideas until someday, Kelly Long might herself be on someone's keeper shelf!
About The Amish Man of Ice Mountain:
Joseph King has good reasons to work an oil rig far from his beloved Ice Mountain . . . and to mind his own business. He hopes to protect his younger brother Edward from worldly influences. And maybe he can finally forget how yielding to temptation forced him to leave home in disgrace. Still, no honorable Amish man would let Priscilla Allen and her four-year-old daughter remain homeless, living out of their car. And how can he not be drawn to the feisty waitress's bravery and hidden strength . . .
Offering Priscilla a home on Ice Mountain as his wife-in-name-only gives her a place to start again. For Joseph, it's also an unexpected chance to regain his reputation and standing in the community. But Priscilla's warmth, caring, and determination to adjust to Amish society are renewing Joseph's long-buried hope. Now as his guilt and her wrenching secrets threaten the fragile trust growing between them, they will need the riskiest of miracles to put the past to rest—and fulfill a promise only love and renewed faith can bring.
Joanna Shupe, author of The Harlot Countess
Thanks for having me today! I have an eclectic bookshelf that includes favorites from all genres. While it would be impossible to pick only a few keepers, here are three I've re-read recently.
• The Lion's Lady by Julie Garwood. There are many great Julie Garwood stories, and this is my favorite. I just love The Lion's Lady. The heroine, raised by a Native American tribe, has traveled to England to take control of her late-mother's fortune. Thrown into the social whirl of the ton, the mysterious princess soon captures the brooding hero's interest. After that, there's shrub eating, absurd conversations, knives and more. It's a lot of crazy … but the best kind of crazy.
• Lead by Kylie Scott. All the books in the Stage Dive series are great, but Lead is my favorite. I love a bad boy and Jimmy Ferris, the lead singer, is exactly that and more. He must hire a sobriety companion and the feisty, smart heroine moves into his house to keep him on the straight and narrow. These two are combustible — and so is this book.
• The Magpie Lord by K.J. Charles. Set in Victorian London, this is an m/m historical romance with fantasy elements, and it's beautifully written. One of the reasons the book is so compelling is Lord Crane, who is like no other hero I've encountered in romance. Having returned from years in the East, he finds himself knee-deep in a mystery he doesn't quite understand. Stephen, a powerful magician, reluctantly agrees to help, and the chemistry between these two MCs is off the charts. The dialogue made me laugh out loud — and who knew magpie tattoos could be so hot?
About The Harlot Countess:
Lady Hawkins's debut was something she'd rather forget—along with her first marriage. Today, the political cartoonist is a new woman. A thoroughly modern woman. So much so that her clamoring public believes she's a man…
Fact: Drawing under a male pseudonym, Maggie is known as Lemarc. Her (his!) favorite object of ridicule: Simon Barrett, Earl of Winchester. He's a rising star in Parliament—and a former confidant and love interest of Maggie's who believed a rumor that vexes her to this day.
Fiction: Maggie is the Half-Irish Harlot who seduced her best friend's husband on the eve of their wedding. She is to be feared and loathed as she will lift her skirts for anything in breeches.
Still crushed by Simon's betrayal, Maggie has no intention of letting the ton crush her as well. In fact, Lemarc's cartoons have made Simon a laughingstock…but now it appears that Maggie may have been wrong about what happened years ago, and that Simon has been secretly yearning for her since…forever. Could it be that the heart is mightier than the pen and the sword after all?