Love Is All Around – LJ Genre Spotlight on Romance

Library Journal is spreading the (book) love with their recent genre spotlight on romance, highlighting these Macmillan titles:

PARANORMAL IMMORTAL?

Reviews from the publishing experts we contacted were mixed on the paranormal subgenre’s future, though it continues to have a strong fan base with digital readers. Christine Warren’s BABY, I’M HOWLING FOR YOU (St. Martin’s, Jan. 2018) features librarian Lennie Landry, a wolf on the run from a pack of coyotes and a stalker. She finds refuge in Alpha, WA, where she meets Mark Fischer, who is escaping his past—or so he thought. THANKS FUR LAST NIGHT (St. Martin’s, Jan. 2018) is a paranormal anthology headlined by best-selling authors Eve Langlais, Milly Taiden, and Kate Baxter. Also from St. Martin’s is Donna Grant’s HEAT (Jan. 2018), which involves an outcast dragon who is drawn to a woman whose mind has been overtaken by magic.

TRÈS STEAMY

In Opal Carew’s X MARKS THE SPOT (St. Martin’s, Apr. 2018), when Abi and Liam’s marriage falls apart, Abi decides to act on her attraction to Del. She thinks she is in bed with Del but soon realizes she is actually with Liam. Oops—or maybe not.

RANCHERS AND COWBOYS

According to Monique Patterson, editorial director, ­romance and executive editor, St. Martin’s Press, “we have seen cowboys start to bubble up lately…. The cowboy can be different from the billionaire (though sometimes they are one and the same). What is exciting is that both are in demand.”

WOUNDED WARRIORS

Riding high as well are military romances with realistic protagonists. THE WICKED BILLIONAIRE by Jackie Ashenden (St. Martin’s, Oct.) involves a ruthless Navy SEAL who feels ­obligated to protect the widow of a teammate when she is threatened.

ROMANTIC SUSPENSE

Readers want “spellbinding” in their romantic suspense, along with new settings and fresh characters. A master of series suspense, Brenda Novak sets us up with HELLO AGAIN (St. Martin’s, Oct.), the second title in her series featuring Dr. Evelyn Talbot set in an Alaskan treatment center for psychopathic criminals.

St. Martin’s has plenty of suspense on tap for next year. Lisa Renee Jones’s END GAME (Jan. 2018) is the final novel in the scorching “Dirty Money Series,” in which Wall Street meets Sons of Anarchy. The streets of Charleston, SC, provide the backdrop for Tara Thomas’s new suspense series “Sons of Broad.” In the opener, DARKEST NIGHT (Feb. 2018), a notorious playboy would give up everything to be with the woman he has loved for years.

CAN THERE BE ENOUGH LOVE?

With regard to format, romance readers are not picky when it comes to where or how a story is published—they just want it to be good. St. Martin’s Patterson also sees beyond format. “As always, we have been interested in the authors that we really feel we can grow—whether they are self-published or not. All it takes is one book to kick [in] the door in a new way and leave it open for other writers to walk through. As a publisher, you hope that you are the one to help an author do just that.”