Top 10: Romance Writer, (Past - Present)

Well, the first batch of reader favorites is in, and it demonstrates one thing clearly: that our readers are as determined to get as many books on their top ten lists as they can manage.

The top ten best romance authors, past and present.

1. Jane Austen
Jane Austen (16 December 1775 – 18 July 1817) was an English novelist whose works of romantic fiction, set among the landed gentry, earned her a place as one of the most widely read writers in English literature, her realism and biting social commentary cementing her historical importance among scholars and critics.

2. Charlotte Bronte
Charlotte Brontë (pronounced /ˈbrɒnti/;[1][2] 21 April 1816 – 31 March 1855) was an English novelist and poet, the eldest of the three Brontë sisters, whose novels are English literature standards. She wrote Jane Eyre under the pen name Currer Bell.

3. Madeline Hunter
Madeline Hunter's first book By Arrangement was published in 2000 and she received the award for Waldenbooks Bestselling Debut Author that year.
In 2000 she also received a rare starred review from Publisher's Weekly for her book By Possession. This happened again in 2003 with The Charmer.
She has been nominated four times and has twice won the Romance Writers of America's prestigious RITA award, first in the long historical category for Stealing Heaven in 2003 and then in the historical category for Lessons of Desire in 2008. Fifteen of her books have appeared on the USA Today bestseller list. She has also appeared on the New York Times Bestseller List and the Waldenbooks Paperback Fiction Bestseller List. Romantic Times has awarded four and a half star reviews to fifteen of her books.
Madeline Hunter is a Ph.D. in Art History, and she teaches at the college level. She currently lives in Pennsylvania with her husband and two sons.

4. Kathleen Woodiwiss
Kathleen E. Woodiwiss, née Kathleen Erin Hogg (June 3, 1939 – July 6, 2007), was a U.S. writer, pioneered the historical romance genre with the 1972 publication of her novel The Flame and the Flower.

5. Julie Garwood
Julie Garwood (born in 1946 in Kansas City, Missouri) is an American writer of over twenty-five romance novels in both the historical and suspense subgenres. Over thirty million copies of her books are in print, and she has had at least 15 New York Times Bestsellers. She has also begun writing a novel for young adults under the pseudonym of Emily Chase.
Garwood's novel For the Roses was adapted for the television feature Rose Hill.

6. Terri Brisbin

7. Jude Devereux
Jude Deveraux (born September 20, 1947 in Fairdale, Kentucky as Jude Gilliam) is an American Romance novel author who is well-known for her historical romances. As of 2010, 36 of her novels had been on The New York Times Best Seller list according to Forbes, including among the dozens such titles as 2009's Lavender Morning and Days of Gold. Deveraux, who was described as "a popular romance author" by the New York Times in 2009, appeared as herself in the 1987 romance novelist documentary Where the Heart Roams. In 2009, she was one of four authors who produced works for the debut of Vook, a company which produces "video books" by combining text, video and internet links into a single experience.
Known for her historical romances with storylines centered on strong, capable heroines, Deveraux has written stories set in later time periods, including post-Revolutionary America, nineteenth century Colorado, and nineteenth century New Mexico. She has written several time-travel romances, and her latest novels have had a contemporary setting. Many of her more recent books feature paranormal storylines.
Many of her books follow the Montgomery and Taggert families and contain recurring characters.

8. Linda Castillo

9. Eloisa James
Mary Bly (born 1962) is a tenured associate professor of English Literature at Fordham University who also writes best-selling Regency romance novels under the pen name Eloisa James.
She is the daughter of poet Robert Bly and short-story author Carol Bly.

10. Nora Roberts
Nora Roberts (born Eleanor Marie Robertson, October 10, 1950 in Silver Spring, Maryland, USA), is a bestselling American author of more than 209 romance novels.[1] She writes as J.D. Robb for the "In Death" series, and has also written under the pseudonym Jill March. Additionally, some of her works were published in the UK as Sarah Hardesty.
Nora Roberts was the first author to be inducted into the Romance Writers of America Hall of Fame. As of 2006, her novels had spent a combined 660 weeks on the New York Times Bestseller List, including 100 weeks in the number-one spot. Over 280 million copies of her books are in print, including 12 million copies sold in 2005 alone.

I’ve read a lot of their books. How many have you read?

• Reference/Source: toptentopten.comby rusticoracle
• Reference/Source: wikipedia.org

Top Ten Female Authors of Vampire Books

This is the list of top women who writes about vampires:

Chelsea Quinn Yarbro was born in Berkeley, California. She attended Berkeley schools through high school followed by three years at San Francisco State College (now University). In November 1969 she married Donald Simpson and divorced in February 1982. She has no children.
Writing for over 35 years, Yarbro has worked in a wide variety of genres, from science fiction to westerns, from young adult adventure to historical horror. She is the author of over 70 novels and numerous short stories. She is probably best known for her series of historical horror novels about the vampire Count Saint-Germain. She also has published numerous volumes in a popular series of channeled wisdom from the entity Michael in the Messages from Michael series.
Yarbro's contribution to the horror genre has been recognised in a variety of ways: she was named a Grand Master at the World Horror Convention in 2003, and in 2005 the International Horror Guild named her a "Living Legend". She has also received the Knightly Order of the Brasov Citadel from the Transylvanian Society of Dracula. In 2009 the Horror Writers' Association presented Yarbro with the Bram Stoker Lifetime Achievement Award.[3] Additionally, two of her novels, The Palace (1979) and Ariosto (1980) were nominated for the World Fantasy Award, neither winning.
On average, Yarbro writes three to four books a year, and one or two short stories and/or essays. She writes six hours per day, six days per week except when traveling. Five days a week she spends three to four hours doing research.
Aside from writing, she has worked as a cartographer, has read tarot cards and palms, and has composed music, all of which she continues to do. Over the years she has studied seven different instruments, voice, and musical theory: composition, voice, and piano have continued to be active interests for her. The newsletter, Yclept Yarbro, about her and her writings has been published since 1995 by Lindig Hall Harris.

Freda Warrington is a British author, known for her epic fantasy, vampire and supernatural novels.
Her earliest novels, the Blackbird series, were written and published when she was just finishing her teen years; in the intervening years she has seen numerous stand-alone novels and a trilogy published. (The original Blackbird series has recently been put back into print by Immanion Press.) Four of her novels (Dark Cathedral, Pagan Moon, Dracula the Undead, and The Amber Citadel) have been nominated for the British Fantasy Society's Best Novel award. Dracula the Undead won the Dracula Society's 1997 Children of the Night Award.[1] Her novel, Elfland, won the Romantic Times Reviewers' Choice Award in the Fantasy Novel category for 2009.[2] Warrington has also seen numerous short stories published in anthologies and magazines.
Born in Leicester, Warrington grew up in Leicestershire. After completing high school, she trained at the Loughborough College of Art and Design and afterward held a job at the Medical Illustration Department of Leicester Royal Infirmary. She eventually moved to full-time writing, pursuing a love she had had since childhood. In addition to her writing, Warrington works part-time in the Charnwood Forest.

Tanya Sue Huff (born 1957) is a Canadian fantasy author. Her stories have been published since the late 1980s, including five fantasy series and one science-fiction series. One of these, her Blood Books series, featuring detective Vicki Nelson, was adapted for television under the title Blood Ties.

Anne Rice (born Howard Allen O'Brien; October 4, 1941) is a best-selling American author of gothic, erotic, and religious-themed books from New Orleans, Louisiana. She was married to poet and painter Stan Rice for 41 years until his death from cancer in 2002. Her books have sold nearly 100 million copies, making her one of the most widely read authors in modern history.

Poppy Z. Brite (born Melissa Ann Brite on May 25, 1967 in New Orleans, Louisiana) is an American author. Brite initially achieved notoriety in the gothic horror genre of literature in the early 1990s after publishing a string of successful novels. Brite's recent work has moved into the related genre of dark comedy, of which many are set in the New Orleans restaurant world. Brite's novels are typically standalone books but may feature recurring characters from previous novels and short stories. Much of Brite's work features openly bisexual and gay characters.

Nancy A. Collins (born 10 September 1959) is a United States horror fiction writer best known for her series of vampire novels featuring her character Sonja Blue. Collins has also written for comic books, including the Swamp Thing series, Jason Vs. Leatherface, Predator: Hell Come A Walkin and her own one-shot Dhampire: Stillborn.
Collins was born in McGehee, Arkansas, United States. She lived in New Orleans, Louisiana in the 1980s; after time in New York City and Atlanta, Georgia she settled in Wilmington, North Carolina in the late 2000s.

Patricia N. Elrod is an American novelist specializing in urban fantasy. She's written in the mystery, romance, paranormal, and historical genres with at least one foray into comedic fantasy. Elrod is also an editor, having worked on several collections for Ace Science Fiction, DAW, Benbella Books, and St. Martin's Griffin. She self-published a signed, limited edition novel under her own imprint, Vampwriter Books.
In 2010, she was nominated for the RT Book Reviews Career Achievement Award in Urban Fantasy.

Charlaine Harris (born November 25, 1951) is a New York Times bestselling author who has been writing mysteries for over twenty years. She was born and raised in the Mississippi River Delta area of the United States. She now lives in southern Arkansas with her husband and three children. Though her early works consisted largely of poems about ghosts and, later, teenage angst, she began writing plays when she attended Rhodes College in Memphis, Tennessee. She began to write books a few years later. Her later books have been in the urban fantasy genre.

Stephenie Meyer (born December 24, 1973), née Morgan, is an American author known for her vampire romance series Twilight. The Twilight novels have gained worldwide recognition and sold over 100 million copies globally, with translations into 37 different languages. Meyer is also the author of the adult science-fiction novel The Host.
Meyer was the biggest selling author of both 2008 and 2009, having sold over 29 million books in 2008 alone, with Twilight being the best-selling book of the year. She sold an additional 26.5 million books in 2009, making her the first author to achieve this feat in that year. Meyer was ranked #49 on Time magazine's list of the "100 Most Influential People in 2008", and was also included in the Forbes Celebrity 100 list of the world's most powerful celebrities in 2009, entering at #26. Her annual earnings exceeded $50 million. Also in 2010, Forbes ranked her as the #59 most powerful celebrity with annual earnings of $40 million.

Laurell Kaye Hamilton (born February 19, 1963) is an American fantasy and romance writer. She is the author of two series of stories. Hamilton is known for her New York Times-bestselling Anita Blake series, featuring a professional zombie raiser/supernatural consultant for the police as the protagonist in a world where vampires and werecreatures not only exist, but are citizens with recently protected, if nervously granted, civil rights in the US. The series has 19 novels, several short story collections, and other media tie-ins such as comic books. 6 million copies of Anita Blake novels are printed.[1] Also notable is her Merry Gentry series, an urban fantasy in which the world of fairy interacts with the "real world".

• Reference/Source: wikipedia
• Reference/Source: Vampires by Joules Taylor

Top 10 2011 Books I want now!

We are now within the confines of 2011 and with the New Year comes a whole new swath of great books to look forward to! While I have two dozen books I want to read coming out this year, these are the books I’ll be buying the day they are released!

I’m betting some of them are on your list! Let’s find out, shall we!

In alphabetical order by last name:


The Heroes by Joe Abercrombie

I have not read Joe’s work. He has assured me this is a perfect place to start. And I’m fascinated by the first sentence of the book description. “They say Black Dow’s killed more men than winter, and clawed his way to the throne of the North up a hill of skulls.” Sounds dark. Gritty. And full of badassery. I may not have read Joe’s earlier work but I know his signature when I see it—and I’m in the mood for something dark. Gritty. And full of badassery! Ha!

The Dragon’s Path by Daniel Abraham

I have also not read Daniel’s work. I’ve been busy writing and editing, writing and editing, and my reading time drastically dropped in 2010. That changes in 2011 and it’s time to remedy that as well with Daniel Abraham. He has made an ever growing splash with his The Long Price Quartet and The Dragon’s Path is the first book in a new series that makes a great jumping on point for new readers. And it sounds great. From the book description, “Falling pebbles can start a landslide. What should have been a small summer spat between gentlemen is spiraling out of control. Dark forces are at work, fanning the flames that will sweep the entire region onto The Dragon’s Path — the path of war.” Want it!

The Inheritance by Robin Hobb

I love short story collections. After having read Robin’s story in the 2010 Warriors anthology, I’m more than looking forward to The Inheritance. My only gripe is it isn’t being published in US hardcover. Annoying. But it will be chocked full of Robin Hobb goodness, the stories pulled from her career with several new additions in the series that made her a beloved writer! And is that a new Fitz series possibly in the works? Hmm, the future is full of possibilities!

A Dance With Dragons by George R. R. Martin

Enter the skeptic. Will this publish in 2011? I have no idea. I stated it was my opinion it would hit in 2010 but GRRM proved my optimism wrong. As I’ve said for years now, he has been unprofessional with this book and the fans have every right to be frustrated. I hate to say it, I’ll take it a step further into territory even detractors won’t go. GRRM seems unavoidably stuck on certain plot elements and I’m more worried about the integrity of the whole series at this point than just one book. One book can be late and it can still be a great book, one that is a great addition to the series; a book with plot inconsistencies or holes can ruin the entirety of Ice & Fire all the way to its climax. It’s sadly the latter I’m leaning toward now, at least until Dance proves me wrong. And I hope I’m proven wrong!
As one blogger out there stated though, George is beyond the amount of manuscript pages seen in A Storm of Swords—the largest book of the series—so when it does finally publish fans will be getting one helluva large book, that’s for sure!
On a different point, in preparation for the HBO series, Suvudu will be conducting a re-read of A Game of Thrones. Get ready! More on this at the end of this month.

Embassytown by China Mieville

China is one of the finest writers working today. His awards won in 2010 prove it from a literary point of view and his readership grows yearly, a testament to his readability. The City & the City was one of his best novels, one that stretched his imagination and his ability. This year we get Embassytown, his first foray into hard science fiction. “Embassytown: a city of contradictions on the outskirts of the universe. Avice is an immerser, a traveller on the immer, the sea of space and time below the everyday, now returned to her birth planet. Here on Arieka, humans are not the only intelligent life, and Avice has a rare bond with the natives, the enigmatic Hosts – who cannot lie. Only a tiny cadre of unique human Ambassadors can speak Language, and connect the two communities. But an unimaginable new arrival has come to Embassytown. And when this Ambassador speaks, everything changes. Catastrophe looms. Avice knows the only hope is for her to speak directly to the alien Hosts. And that is impossible.” Sounds right up my alley!

The Dark Commands by Richard Morgan

It has been a long time coming but the sequel to 2008’s The Steel Remains looks like it will publish in late 2011. Keep your hope safe though. As with A Dance With Dragons, The Dark Commands (The Cold Commands) has been pushed back several times. Still, I enjoyed The Steel Remains a great deal. I don’t think it was revolutionary but it was dark and gritty and went into some areas that made many readers squirm. And as a writer, I like authors who make people squirm. So let’s hope the October 2011 release date is the final one! After all, I’m in the mood for some dark and gritty fantasy and Richard Morgan is a master at dark and gritty!

Crucible of Gold by Naomi Novik

I am hoping this book sees 2011. I don’t know for certain. I know Naomi was trying to wrap up the seventh book in the Temeraire series by December before she gave birth to her first child. Still, it can’t be far away from completion if she was near the end, which means it very well could see 2011. And if it does, great! I love Temeraire. As dragons go, he is one of the most amusing I’ve read. And with Laurence and his companion barging/flying all over the world, alone for all intents and purposes now, it will be interesting to see where Naomi takes their story! And who knows? Perhaps this will be the year the series is greenlit onto the silver screen! Stay tuned!

The Unremembered by Peter Orullian

Here is the only debut book on the list. The Unremembered by Peter Orullian. It is a massive epic being published by Tor Books, definitely in the vein of Brandon Sanderson or Terry Brooks’ early work. It publishes in April, and here is a bit more about it: “he gods, makers of worlds, seek to create balance—between matter and energy; and between mortals who strive toward the transcendent, and the natural perils they must tame or overcome. But one of the gods fashions a world filled with hellish creatures far too powerful to allow balance; he is condemned to live for eternity with his most hateful creations in that world’s distant Bourne, restrained by a magical veil kept vital by the power of song.
Millennia pass, awareness of the hidden danger fades to legend, and both song and veil weaken. And the most remote cities are laid waste by fell, nightmarish troops escaped from the Bourne. Some people dismiss the attacks as mere rumor. Instead of standing against the real threat, they persecute those with the knowledge, magic and power to fight these abominations, denying the inevitability of war and annihilation. And the evil from the Bourne swells…. “ Sometimes I need a big epic to immerse myself in for a month. I think April will be a great time for it, while it rains and rains and rains here in Seattle…!

The River of Shadows by Robert V. S. Redick

I loved The Red Wolf Conspiracy. It was one of the best debut books, in my opinion, a few years ago. The Ruling Sea, it’s sequel, started slow but picked up strong enough I am really looking forward to the third book, The River of Shadows. I love seafaring tales and the tale of the epic ship Chathrand is that—and so much more! Throw in some great and fascinating characters, and Robert Redick is proving himself to be one of my favorites!

The Wise Man’s Fear by Patrick Rothfuss

The Name of Wind. Arguably one of the finest debut books in the last decade. It is the story of Kvothe, who sinks from gypsy to homeless pauper to University student and beyond. Kvothe is one of the most fully realized characters I’ve read and his story is one most people fall in love with immediately. The Wise Man’s Fear is the continuation of that tale and it’s been three long years in the waiting. It’s also a massive book! Love that kind of pay out! When March 1st arrives, be prepared for a swell of publicity surrounding this release, as it will be one of the biggest bestsellers of the year! Can Rothfuss pull off another wonderful tale? I hope so! March can’t come quick enough!

There you have it! My list of books I want right now! What books make your list? Post them! Maybe I can get around to them too this year!
Cheers!

• Reference/Source: sf-fantasy.suvudu.com By Shawn Speakman