Love Romance Passion » Black http://www.loveromancepassion.com Because Books Don't Fall Asleep Afterwards! Fri, 10 Feb 2012 09:00:00 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 Review: Off the Record (Love on the Line, Book One) by Camryn Rhys http://www.loveromancepassion.com/review-off-the-record-love-on-the-line-book-one-by-camryn-rhys/ http://www.loveromancepassion.com/review-off-the-record-love-on-the-line-book-one-by-camryn-rhys/#comments Fri, 13 Jan 2012 09:45:46 +0000 Lynn Reynolds http://www.loveromancepassion.com/?p=13613

Reviewed by Lynn Reynolds

Katrina Parker is a chef at a new restaurant. Because of a mix-up, she’s seen buying some food at the local supermarket. There she gets a nice surprise by meeting Emily Reed. Emily’s son Ben seems fascinated by Kit’s coat. Kit is fascinated by Emily but she’s not sure if Emily feels the same.

They meet later when Emily shows up at Kit’s restaurant. Both women give off mixed messages which just confuses the other. Camryn gives us some indication in how Emily feels by giving us glimpses of her fantasies. You’ll just have to read to see if any of Emily’s fantasies come true.

Kit wants redemption for a less than stellar food critic review so she cooks a meal for Emily and a co-worker. We get to see the connection between the two women blossom. I like how Camryn keeps the story real by showing how prejudice still exists. But those prejudices don’t stop the women from forming a relationship.

Camryn also leaves the reader wondering what life has in store for Emily and Kit. But what happens to Ben? Does Kit’s restaurant become a success? What better way to end a story, where one of the characters is a chef, but with a delicious sounding recipe.

Rating: ★★★★☆

Buy: Off the Record (Love on the Line)

Online Stores ]]> http://www.loveromancepassion.com/review-off-the-record-love-on-the-line-book-one-by-camryn-rhys/feed/ 2 Movie Review: Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Cinderella Starring Brandy Norwood and Paolo Montalban http://www.loveromancepassion.com/movie-review-rodgers-and-hammersteins-cinderella-starring-brandy-norwood-and-paolo-montalban/ http://www.loveromancepassion.com/movie-review-rodgers-and-hammersteins-cinderella-starring-brandy-norwood-and-paolo-montalban/#comments Wed, 06 Apr 2011 09:38:44 +0000 Keira http://www.loveromancepassion.com/?p=696

I love Cinderella. I don’t really know anybody who doesn’t adore this type of character. Her story is one of rags to riches; poor in money but rich in love. Take her story, a timeless classic, and add Rodgers and Hammerstein to the mix and you have a hit musical. I love all versions of this musical but my all time favorite stars quite a cast of famous names including: Brandy Norwood, Bernadette Peters, Veanne Cox, Whoopi Goldberg, Jason Alexander, Whitney Houston, and Natalie Desselle.

In this version three new songs are added to the mix. They’re fun, uplifting, and just exciting to watch on screen. The first to appear is ‘The Deepest Love in all the World,’ sung by Brandy Norwood and Paolo Montalban. This song occurs just before they first meet in the market and it’s completely wonderful. It is probably my favorite song in the whole production. The next addition is ‘Falling in Love with Love,’ sung by the unparalleled Bernadette Peters. You really get to know the Stepmother in this sequence. The last is probably my least favorite, but it occurs at the very end of the movie in all the wrap-up so you can easily ignore it and that is ‘The Music in You’ sung by Whitney Houston.

I love the multi-ethnic casting! An Asian prince, a Caucasian king, a Black queen, and so on. Jason Alexander as the prince’s valet is spectacularly funny. Whoopi plays a wonderfully concerned queenly mother who just happens to always want her own way. Wink. Brandy is charming as Cinderella. She really makes you feel that she is Cinderella; her eyes are very expressive. Everyone was wonderful, so even as you recognize them on screen or try to figure out who they are the acting pulls you back into the movie before you can say Bibbity Bobbity Boo.

The choreography, costumes, singing, dialogue is colorful, spirited, enchanting, and just wow. Honestly, if you’re looking for a gift for your daughter, sister, or friend you can’t go wrong picking this movie out. It’s a feel good, put a spring in your step happy movie that gets you singing and dancing around the room just so you can join in the festivities.

Rating: ★★★★★

Online Stores ]]> http://www.loveromancepassion.com/movie-review-rodgers-and-hammersteins-cinderella-starring-brandy-norwood-and-paolo-montalban/feed/ 0 Review: Wife for Westmoreland by Brenda Jackson http://www.loveromancepassion.com/review-wife-for-westmoreland-by-brenda-jackson/ http://www.loveromancepassion.com/review-wife-for-westmoreland-by-brenda-jackson/#comments Tue, 29 Mar 2011 09:34:04 +0000 Keira http://www.loveromancepassion.com/?p=9842

The title of this novel is what drew me to it in the first place but it was the book blurb that cinched it for me. I liked the idea of a one night stand that left a hero quaking in his cowboy boots over the heroine and a desperate urge to find her and when he does find that his playboy charm doesn’t wash and must resort to serious wooing to win her heart.

However, that’s not really how it plays out. The elements are there but the story weaved is a little different. Derringer Westmoreland, high on painkillers, ends up sleeping with a woman he should recognize but doesn’t. Both hero and heroine are at fault in the one night stand: the hero for taking too much medicine and for pursuing the heroine (who called herself Puddin’ Tame for goodness sakes) and it’s the heroine fault for taking advantage of the situation to lose her V-card… the whole matter bugged me. Out of your mind sex, shouldn’t actually be when you’re out of your mind.

When he wakes up, he’s only keen on finding the woman to get revenge, not to get into her panties, and to make sure she doesn’t slap a paternity suit on him… but then changes his game plan over the course of the first date.  Considering how angry he was over the paternity suit gambit, it should surprise you as it did me to learn that he was more than happy to have unprotected sex repeatedly. Idiot. The heroine’s not much better in that regard. Safe sex was not on the menu.

I did like that the pining away for years aspect on the heroine’s side wasn’t actually one sided. If it had been I’m not sure I could have bought the hero’s switch in his plans. As it was, Derringer had been warned away from Lucia on two separate occasions by her father. Derringer might be a ladies man, but he has a few morals and standards, and now that Lucia is old enough to make her own choices things are different.

I also didn’t mind that the heroine was 29 and still a virgin, though I know this will bug some contemporary readers who could buy it in a historical more easily. I think that’s a great life choice if that’s what a person wants, though the heroine was clearly saving her virginity for the hero and not marriage (which is not a bad thing either).

Rating: ★★☆☆☆

Buy: A Wife for a Westmoreland (Harlequin Desire)

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by Carla F., guest reviewer

Summary: Businessman Nick Sinclair is determined to land the account of an important client, William Zelman, who is a devoted husband. When he finds out that the man is taking his wife on a cruise. Nick decides to go with his own wife. The trouble is that he hasn’t got one.  Attempts to find a pretend wife are a bust until by accident he encounters one of his own employees waiting in line to get on the cruise ship. Laney Parks is perfect for the role since she is African-American just like Zelman’s wife.

Laney was set to go on the cruise with her fiance, but then she catches him with another woman. When Nick asks for her help, she is reluctant to have to lie to the Zelmans. Sinclair offers her to pay for her cruise and give her an extra $10,000 if he lands Zelman as a client. Laney also wants Nick to give her a promotion to VP of Art Direction. He agrees.

Now they just need to stick to the script.

Review (spoilers): This was a fun read, and the sex scenes are sizzling. In the beginning when Nick is trying to find a wife, he comes off as a little bit of a horndog. Later jealously causes him to say very unkind things to Laney (more than once), but he quickly realizes that he is behaving badly.  In the end he is a likable character.

The things that bugged me: Nick is a well-known businessman. Wouldn’t he realize that Zelman could find out easily if Nick was married or not? Also I wished that Laney had stood up to Nick a little bit more.

The scene that I wanted to read but it wasn’t there: The moment when Laney’s slave-driver of a boss realizes that Laney is marrying the big guy.

Overall: Mostly definitely recommended for fans of boss/employee plots, interracial romance, or cruise ship love.

Rating: ★★★★☆

Buy: Love Script: Deluxe Edition

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Corporate Seduction is a highly erotic interracial romance set in the workplace with a white male boss and a black female secretary.

Winston Biggers is a jerk. He’s rude, mean, unfeeling and Maybelline, his secretary, is certain he’s keeping her from advancing. He won’t even give her a raise after all she’s put up with over the years. To cover the gap in her salary, May takes a second job at the Oh Club, a exclusive club that caters to a BDSM clientele, as a Dominatrix.

When a masked Winston wanders inside he’s immediately drawn to Mistress Mayai (pronounced "May I/Eye") as she reminds him of his secretary, a woman he’s been attracted to from the beginning of their working relationship, but was unable to do anything about do to company policy.

When they learn of their real identities the game changes. Win will get to be the Dom during the day at work and have May submit to him. At night, May will continue to be Dom. This setup lets them remain in lust with each other while also allowing them to take full control.

Winston and Maybelline are not perfect characters. They each do things that aren’t very likeable. For instance, Maybelline does something incredibly cruel and stupid in the beginning to Winston in retaliation to ill treatment. She sends his current girlfriend a very mushy note with an overly sentimental and romantic bouquet when he requested something very benign as he was leaning toward breaking up with the woman. I felt so bad for the soon-to-be-ex.  On the other hand, Winston is a true cad. He knows Maybelline deserves the raise she requested and to be promoted but he keeps her where she is because it suits him. It's hard to like a story when you don't like the main characters.

Some other things that bugged me – May never interacting with her grandmother for whom she was taking the moonlight job for and Princess/Mistress Payne the sadist side character.

Rating: ★☆☆☆☆

Buy: Corporate Seduction

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guestreview

By: Cara Lynn, guest reviewer

A Moment on the Lips by Phyllis Bourne Williams is a sweet love story. I picked it up from the library because the cover was different. It is an artist's rendering of a lovely black woman about to eat a strawberry. It is a Leisure Book, and I will certainly look for more.

Grant Price is a wealthy, high powered executive who is used to getting his way in business, but his life is ruled by how busy he is. He and his father wish to recruit Melody Mason, but she has more or less disappeared from business life, after being at the head of her game. Grant goes to find her, determined to bring her back for the company. They had been in college together where the two of them were rivals, spurring each other on to bigger heights.

Melody has left the business world, originally for health reasons, but also because she no longer loved it. (There isn't an emphasis on the problems.) Being responsible for other people's money, even though she is very good at it, was also stressful. She cared enough that those invested with her were more than a number, even if she didn't know their names.

When Grant comes to offer his business proposal in person, she counters his proposal with one of her own. If he will stay in her small town in Tennessee for one week, without a cell phone, laptop, fax machine or contacting the office, she will go with him for one week and present a seminar. She doesn't think he will stick to it. He feels she will come to work for more than a week.

Melody's reason is that she doesn't want him to have the health problem she had because of his Type A personality. Grant has his own misgivings because he wished to pursue another career, only his father overrode him in his youth.

Melody is in process of opening a knit shop. Grant doesn't realize how far along the plans are.

Her small town has the usual cast of characters -- a town gossip, a homeless man, many long time friends, the intertwining of lives.

Melody suspects Grant is only using her to get her to make money for the firm. She has had two engagements fall through when she realized both men only wanted her for the money she could make them. She also isn't the typical heroine -- she is nearly 40, mature in her body and her thinking -- so she is skeptical of his involvement in her life and has been hurt enough that trust doesn't come easily for her.

Of course, they fall in love. There is humor and realism; possible marital problems with a friend whose marriage had always been happy; enough romance to be satisfying; and grown ups living lives not too far out of the realm of reality. The various threads in the story are cleared up nicely, but not in ways that seem contrived.

If you are interested in a black romance, this is well done. However, the book is not particularly black. Other than the descriptions of the two main characters and a small bit mentioned about hair weaves vs. natural curls, the other characters could be black -- or not. There is no colloquial language.

Rating: 4 Stars

It was a happy read for a hot summer day.

Buy: A Moment on the Lips

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Online Stores ]]> http://www.loveromancepassion.com/a-moment-on-the-lips-by-phyllis-bourne-williams/feed/ 0 Review: Lessons from a Younger Lover by Zuri Day http://www.loveromancepassion.com/review-lessons-from-a-younger-lover-by-zuri-day/ http://www.loveromancepassion.com/review-lessons-from-a-younger-lover-by-zuri-day/#comments Thu, 16 Sep 2010 09:47:43 +0000 Cara Lynn http://www.loveromancepassion.com/?p=8294

by Cara Lynn, guest reviewer

I got this book for free for my Kindle when it was offered that way on Amazon. It is no longer that way.

Gwen Smith is back in her home town at a low point in her life. She is 40 years old, her husband has left her for a younger woman, and she is reeling.  Her mother is no help to her, but needs her help because she is losing her mental abilities.

The last thing she expects to find is a man that she will fall head over heels with -- and on top of that, he is 26.  Ransom Blake is older than his years, because he has the responsibility for his young daughter whose mother has practically abandoned her.

And before she knew who he was, she was already falling in love with his daughter.  And he definitely is more than interested in her.

This is a black romance.  At times some of the black language with her friend (about sex and body parts) got in the way of the story for me.  (I am not black.) The dialogue between them seemed coarse.

I really did enjoy the story and the characters though. Everything (story/characters) was well developed. The good characters were very good and the bad characters very bad. I would read another story by her.

I particularly enjoyed the way the treatment of the older people in the book... though older people was actually quite young.

Oh and the sex is hot and the romance believable!

Ransom's daughter needs a mother, and Gwen needs to be appreciated.  Of course there are some twists and turns in the story, including her almost-ex coming back into her life with a last ditch offer prior to their divorce and Ransom's daughter's mother coming back in hopes of picking up where she left off (and her meddling mother.)  Thankfully she doesn't fall for it and stays the course with her new love.

I give it 3 out of 5 stars only because I thought the colloquial language between Gwen and her friend got in the way of the story and tended to cheapen the romance side of the story.

Buy: Lessons From A Younger Lover (print), Lessons From A Younger Lover (ebook)

Online Stores ]]> http://www.loveromancepassion.com/review-lessons-from-a-younger-lover-by-zuri-day/feed/ 0 Heart and Soul- Evolution of African American Romance http://www.loveromancepassion.com/heart-and-soul-evolution-of-african-american-romance/ http://www.loveromancepassion.com/heart-and-soul-evolution-of-african-american-romance/#comments Tue, 02 Feb 2010 09:26:33 +0000 Keira http://www.loveromancepassion.com/?p=841

genre

Black romance is a blooming section of romance industry and is still growing. Officially having its start in 1980 with Entwined Destines written by Rosalind Welles, black romance has expanded and taken shape over the years. While it's true that the genre could benefit from more authors and more books, black romance is a force to be reckoned with and getting stronger all the time. It is my hope to see the genre grow out of its own publishing lines (by sheer volume) and start to mingle alongside romance about white leads. Part of what will make this happen is for the genre to see writers become as influential and iconic as Nora Roberts, Danielle Steel, and LaVyrle Spencer. If authors become a household name to buy, sales will pick up and the genre will be more validated as whole.

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It is said that the head of Kensington Publishing had been visiting New York bookstore when he overheard two black women wishing for more African American romance. In 1994, Arabesque was created as the first major line for black readers. Since that point 250 titles by approximately 50 African-American authors have been published.

couple2Arabesque was later bought by Harlequin, increasing the number of released books to 450. Now Arabesque is the nation's leading line of single-title African American romance. Besides publishing Arabesque, Harlequin also publishes Sepia, New Spirit, and Kimani Romance lines. Kimani is a female African-American name that means "sweet and beautiful." Kimani is Harlequin's equivalent to category romance as Kimani novels are mass-market paperback series.

I'm curious to learn if there are Caucasian writers writing about black leads and African American authors writing about white leads? After all we already know there are male authors producing novels that we love... this can't be too far of a stretch.

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Online Stores ]]> http://www.loveromancepassion.com/heart-and-soul-evolution-of-african-american-romance/feed/ 1 Interracial Romance or Race in Romance http://www.loveromancepassion.com/interracial-romance-or-race-in-romance/ http://www.loveromancepassion.com/interracial-romance-or-race-in-romance/#comments Mon, 14 Dec 2009 09:25:24 +0000 Keira http://www.loveromancepassion.com/?p=751

While there can be trouble with any ethnic group pairing up outside of their background, people usually think of interracial in terms of black and white. Which begs the question can a white lead and a black lead fall in love?

It is said that love cannot be defined by the color of skin, but just because it is understood intellectually doesn’t mean it is accepted socially.

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When I read in the news about interracial couples and the problems they face today it seems that prejudice is still running high on both sides of the line. The offended parties are the losers in love, and they spill poison and hate on those who have found love. The losers feel they’ve been deprived of their due when they see someone of their skin color happy and in love with someone of another skin color. In their jealousy, they don’t take into account what the two have in common with each other and immediately see only the differences… Superficial differences that is.

smallA man or woman dating someone of another color is seen to be driven by the urge to be that other skin color or a expression of a form of racial self-hatred. Skin color separates lovers today in the same way that society pressures rich men into seeking equally rich or highborn brides of the past (and present) in real life and in romance novels.

Interracial novels have to deal with the same issues and troubles that plague real interracial relationships today- prejudice and jealousy- to be authentic.

Photo Credits: 1, 2

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