I’ve just updated the Blaze list for the August 2009 books. Many of them are already available for order on the eHarlequin.com website.

August’s books include:

• Unbridled (#483) by Tori Carrington » Paperback, Ebook
• The Personal Touch (#484) by Lori Borrill » Paperback, Ebook
• Hot Under Pressure (#485) by Kathleen O’Reilly » Paperback, Ebook
• Sliding into Home (#486) by Joanne Rock » Paperback, Ebook
• Storm Watch (#487) by Jill Shalvis » Paperback, Ebook
• The Mighty Quinns: Callum (#488) by Kate Hoffmann » Paperback, Ebook

Only the first two (#483 and #484) aren’t part of a Harlequin miniseries. August’s Harlequin Blaze books are part of these miniseries:

• Where You Least Expect It
• Encounters
• Uniformly Hot!
• Quinns Down Under
• The Mighty Quinns

You can check out other series on the site on the series list. I also put up the titles and authors of the upcoming September – November Harlequin Blaze releases, but my information is incomplete at the moment. I’ll update when I get more details about the books!

The July Harlequin Blaze print books are still available, so get them new while you can. :)

I had a friend point this out to me today: http://www.scribd.com/Hazellea.

You can find many Harlequin books to read on Scribd, but if you do so, you’ll probably be breaking the law. Ethically speaking, I certainly wouldn’t be comfortable reading these books from the site.

I enjoy finding new and interesting websites, and I think Scribd is that, but I was disappointed to see what appears to be so many books on the site that probably shouldn’t be there… If you know any of the authors of these books, you might want to let them know about the site so they can take steps to be sure their books aren’t illegally posted.

Today I quickly updated the site to include the June 2009 books from Harlequin Blaze. Lots of great authors have books out this coming month, including Tori Carrington, Rhonda Nelson,  Kate Hoffmann, Crystal Green, and Cara Summers. There was also new Blaze author in the lot, Heather MacAllister.

I always enjoy seeing new authors and reading their books to see if they’ve brought anything fresh to the series.

What about you? Do you enjoy trying the new authors or do you avoid them?

There’s a sad truth in my pile of to-be-read books. Some of the books in my pile just aren’t the kinds of books I enjoy reading.

Even some of those that were good just couldn’t hold my interest long enough for me to make it to the end of the book. Some books stalled sooner than later, and some I consider only temporarily stalled.

I’ve been known to stop in the middle of a book and then go back to it later and enjoy the book more than ever. I’ve even recommended some of those books, because who knows why I stopped reading in the first place? When I went back, I really did enjoy the book.

When I pick up a book I’ve put down unfinished, I never start reading back at the beginning. I prefer to make my way through the book from where I stopped previously. And maybe that’s some of the problem. If a book is that easy to start reading from the middle why was all that stuff included at the beginning anyway?

Don’t you often find that many books start too early in the story? I enjoy the occasional slow build up in a book, but most often, I find that some authors don’t want to leave anything for me to assume or conclude on my own. They want to explain every aspect of the story and characters, to the point where there’s no mystery left in the book at all. But I enjoy just jumping in and figuring out some of this stuff for myself.

In fact, I enjoy mystery in my reading, and I’m not talking about whodoneit. I’m talking about the mystery of uncovering character motivations. I don’t want to know everything at the outset of the book. I enjoy coming up with my own thoughts about why the characters might be doing whatever it is they’re doing and to have those assumptions either confirmed or ripped apart later by a great author who’s willing to leave a few things up to my imagination. What about you?

I thought it might be interesting to list a few of the books I haven’t finished so far this year and give some of the reasons why I put them aside. I make no judgment of the books that haven’t held my interest, because I haven’t finished them and because someday, I still might make it to the end.

A few days ago I added the April 2009 and May 2009 Harlequin Blaze books to the site. Oh, and the latest Spice & Spice Briefs too. :) I know it wasn’t anyone’s intention that I do so, but every time I type Spice Briefs, I think of underwear instead of books…

I’ve read quite a few great books lately and have several reviews in the works. I hate that I’m so far behind with them, but I just can’t seem to put down the books long enough to type out the reviews for the one’s I’ve already read!

If you want a sneak peek at what I thought of some of them thought without having to wait for the reviews, just check out the ratings and the recommended reads. If I recommended it, I really liked it. :)

…but it sure was a great book!

Okay, so I spent some serious time reading over the past month, and I’m definitely not staying on top of writing reviews for those books. I thought I’d mention them here though, because I’ve read some fabulous books lately.

Hard and Fast by Erin McCarthy – It’s not available yet, but when it becomes available, you should run out and buy it right away. It was a wonderful book, full of all kinds of goodness. I absolutely loved Imogen and Ty, and usually the female characters are not my favorites. I’m all for the guys and I adore it when I find a female character I really love. I loved Imogen. This book is a (very, very) highly recommended read.

Kiss of Fate by Deborah Cooke – Okay, this one isn’t exactly erotic romance. But it was sexy. And exciting. And action-y. And FABULOUS. I hadn’t realized how much I might like reading about Dragon heroes until I read this book. Now I’m on the lookout for dragon stories…and buying the other books in the series I think I’m going to be addicted to.

Kiss of a Demon King by Kresley Cole – Finally! If you’ve been around this site very much, you’ll probably realize I love, love, love the Immortals After Dark series. This is a wonderful addition to the series and Rydstrom and Sabine are now two of my favorite Immortals.

Raine by Elizabeth Amber – Oh, this one is hard to explain, but it was a great book. I loved Jordan and Raine. The only thing about the Lords of Satyr series is the darkness. I don’t like to read too many dark stories in a row, so I wouldn’t want to sit down and read all the stories at once, but I will definitely be reading the rest of the series. Definitely.

Oh, and right at this moment, I’m reading White Star, Never Been Witched, Everlasting Bad Boys, and a few others. I should really learn to focus on one book at a time…but then again, I might not enjoy reading so much if I had to follow rules about how I did it!

Goodness, there are still so many other books I’ve read lately, but many of them don’t fit the site, and I’m out of time right now!

What good books have you read lately?

Heather at WeWriteRomance.com gave me the heads up that Leslie Kelly is writing on her blog today. Leslie Kelly is a popular Blaze author, who writes what she calls “funny, sexy contemporary romance.” She’s also the author of the Blaze book that’s being given away on the Harlequin Celebrates website as I mentioned in a previous post called Get your free ebooks from Harlequin Celebrates.

Read Leslie Kelly’s post How Do You Wrap Up Your Love Scenes?

Portia Da Costa is posting on WeWriteRomance.com’s blog. If you don’t know who Portia Da Costa is, then you haven’t spent much time at this website. Portia writes ultra-sexy stories for Black Lace and has recently begun writing books for Spice Briefs.

I’ve got to get those new books entered! I swear there’s still so much I want to get done on this site.

Anyway, I love the part where she talks about how she got into writing erotica.

But then, fate took a hand, and I got shunted onto a slightly different writing track. A writers’ advisor took a look at one of my manuscripts, and amongst all the terrible plotting and the flimsy romantic conflict, she picked up on something I seemed to be pretty good at. Writing sex scenes. She advised me to try writing erotica, as that was an easier market to break into at the time. I took her advice, and with a speed that still surprises me today, I had a book accepted. And some stories. Pretty soon I started writing for Virgin’s famous Black Lace imprint, and I’ve been writing Black Lace novels ever since. My latest IN TOO DEEP, came out in November 2008, and KISS IT BETTER, my 15th title [including novellas] comes out in August 2009.

If you want to read more, the post is IF AT FIRST YOU DON’T SUCCEED… by Portia Da Costa

Mirror, Mirror (Spice Briefs) by Amanda McIntyre is a Recommended Read.  I love a good mystery and this short, erotic read delivers! Read my review

Would-Be Witch (Berkley Sensation) by Kimberly Frost is a Highly Recommended Read, but I have to warn you, there’s not a lot of sex in this book. I couldn’t stand not to recommend this book though—it really was that good. This book pulls off sexy without much sex and is the most fun I’ve had reading in ages!

Ravenous: The Dark Forgotten (Signet Eclipse) by Sharon Ashwood is a Highly Recommended Read. There’s plenty of sexual tension in this vampire/witch romance, but it was light on the sex. Still, it’s a sensually appealing romance that’s great reading and I couldn’t stand not to recommend it.

Pretty Poison (Luv Luv) by Yutta Narukami is a Recommended Read. This isn’t my first erotic manga, but it was the first one I’ve been able to recommend without reservation. It’s a surprisingly good “Ladies’ Comic” of the erotic romance variety. If you enjoy comic books, graphic novels or the like, you really might like this one.

Really Unusual Bad Boys (Kensington Brava) by MaryJanice Davidson is a Recommended Read. This imaginative and fun book is an anthology of 3 connected short stories! I really enjoyed the dose of humor in this one.

I’ve got reviews in the hopper for each of these books. I just have to make the time to get them done! (Not so easy when I just want to be reading…)

Have you read anything great lately?

Saturday (or was it Friday?) I added the March 2009 Blaze books from Harlequin to the site.

I also recently added several books to the Berkley Sensation book list.

I’ve had several additions to the Recommended Reading list, and I’ve also updated my Current Reading list to pull together better info on what’s on my to-be-read list and what is in the read-but-wating-to-be-reviewed queue. As you can see if you take a look at that page, I have several reviews to write and will hopefully be posting them soon!