Review: Making it Last by Ruthie Knox

Author: Ruthie Knox
Publisher: Loveswept
Date of Publication: July 15, 2013 

A hotel bar. A sexy stranger. A night of passion. There’s a part of Amber Mazzara that wants those things, wants to have a moment — just one — where life isn’t a complicated tangle of house and husband and kids and careers. Then, after a long, exhausting “vacation” with her family, her husband surprises her with a gift: a few days on the beach . . . alone.

Only she won’t be alone long, because a handsome man just bought her a drink. He’s cool, he’s confident, and he wants to take Amber to bed and keep her there for days. Lucky for them both, he’s her husband. He’s only got a few days in Jamaica to make her wildest desires come true, but if he can pull it off, there’s reason to believe that this fantasy can last a lifetime.

Making it Last actually takes place between Along Came Trouble  and Flirting with Disaster, even though it is the fourth book in the series   I am so happy that Ms. Knox decided to write another novella featuring Tony and Amber.  It's been ten years since we first met them in How to Misbehave.   Not everything is champagne and roses.  Can they get back to themselves and will they fight for what they want?

I loved this story.  As much as I love my HEAs in romance novels, I often wonder how long they stay that way.  How does the couple cope with real life?  I thought Making it Last realistically portrayed a married couple who is fighting to make it day to day and has forgotten what is really important.  I was really rooting for them to get back to the basics and back to who they really are both apart and separate.  The ending was sweet and made me sigh to know that his couple was going to be OK.  This whole series has been wonderful and not one you want to miss!

Review: Along Came Trouble by Ruthie Knox

Author: Ruthie Knox
Publisher: Loveswept (Random House)
Date of Publication: April, 2013

An accomplished lawyer and driven single mother, Ellen Callahan isn't looking for any help. She’s doing just fine on her own. So Ellen’s more than a little peeved when her brother, an international pop star, hires a security guard to protect her from a prying press that will stop at nothing to dig up dirt on him. But when the tanned and toned Caleb Clark shows up at her door, Ellen might just have to plead the fifth.

Back home after a deployment in Iraq and looking for work as a civilian, Caleb signs on as Ellen’s bodyguard. After combat in the hot desert sun, this job should be a breeze. But guarding the willful beauty is harder than he imagined—and Caleb can’t resist the temptation to mix business with pleasure. With their desires growing more undeniable by the day, Ellen and Caleb give in to an evening of steamy passion. But will they ever be able to share more than just a one-night stand? 

Along Came Trouble is the second in the Camelot series by Ruthie Knox. It takes place about 10 years after How to Misbehave. We do get a glimpse of where Amber and Tony have ended up in this one.  I always like to follow up with characters.

Caleb (Amber's brother) and Ellen were very cute together.  I loved how Caleb wormed his way into Ellen's life.  He was too cute with her son.  I did think that at times Ellen was a little too stubborn, but knowing her background with her ex, I had to cut her some slack.

The secondary romance was with Jamie and Carly was cute. But I thought that Carly took things too far in the end by dragging out the reconciliation.  How much more did the poor guy have to do to prove he was sorry?  The "press conference" was a really funny scene.

I look forward to reading Katie and Sean's story, Flirting with Disaster, next!

Guest Post and Review: About Last Night by Ruthie Knox

Please welcome author, Ruthie Knox, as she tells us about the complicated editing process.  But first, I'll share my thoughts on her latest book, About Last Night.

Author: Ruthie Knox
Publisher: Loveswept
Date of publication: June 2012

Sure, opposites attract, but in this sexy, smart eBook original romance from Ruthie Knox, they positively combust! When a buttoned-up banker falls for a bad girl, “about last night” is just the beginning.

My thoughts:

Ruthie Knox is quickly becoming a favorite author of mine! I thoroughly enjoyed About Last Night.  Nev and Cath may be opposites, but they are so suited for each other.  The chemistry alone just sizzles off the page.  Nev is definitely smitten from the first, but Cath takes a bit longer to admit how she feels.  I loved both characters because while they are opposites, they are really searching for the same thing..their true self.  I don't want to give away the end, I'll just say that what Nev does for Cath in the end had me choked up.  If you haven't had a chance to pick up this book, take some time to check it out!

On Writing, Editing, and Errors by Ruthie Knox

Recently, I read an amazing book — Morning Glory by LaVyrle Spencer. The hero is a starving ex-con, the heroine a pregnant, widowed mother of two who needs a husband. The romance is knock-your-socks-off fabulous. Super-awesome-amazing.

Morning Glory is an older title, originally published in 1989 but reissued for Kindle. And I love that — I love that it’s possible for me to hear from a friend about a book issued thirteen years ago, to find it immediately, and to buy it and download it and start reading it on my Kindle.

There was really only one thing I didn’t like about Morning Glory, and that was this: every time the word “preciate” was supposed to appear in the text — which was pretty often, given that this is a book set in late 1930s Georgia, and people were polite back then — the book actually said “predate.”

As in, “I predate that, ma’am.”

This is the kind of error that makes readers scratch their heads and wonder, “Did anybody even read that book? What do editors do, anyway, if errors like that can show up in print books? Do they just spend their days sipping lattes, or what?”

Now, in the case of Morning Glory, we’re almost certainly looking at an OCR error. That is, a print version of the book was scanned, optical character recognition software was used to turn the scanned image files into text files, and then some combination of spell-checker and human eyeballs checked over the files for errors but missed the substitution of “predate” for “preciate.”

Fair enough. But we’ve all seen worse errors, haven’t we? I know I have, and I used to wonder how they got in there.

I mean, the author writes the book, right? And then the editor combs over it and helps make sure every word is in the right place, and someone checks all the grammar and whatnot, or maybe that’s the proofreader, who knows, and somehow in the end the book comes out. How can they fail to catch the errors? Where’s the quality control?

Except, the thing is, that’s not really how it works. The book you buy isn’t so much a perfectly combed-through finished opus as it is a snapshot of where the manuscript was at on the day it finally got transmitted from editorial to production. Which isn’t to say that perfect isn’t the goal — it is. It’s just to say that humans aren’t perfect.

Here’s how it really works: The author writes a manuscript, and probably rewrites it, gets opinions from friends, rewrites it again, sweats blood over it, etc., until by the time the author thinks it’s good enough to submit to her agent or editor, she can’t even really read it anymore, because she’s read it so many times, she’s lost the ability to see it. But her test-reading friends tell her it’s good, so she sends it off. The editor reads it and loves it (except for A, B, C, and D, which are totally fixable), so she offers a contract, and the book gets bought.

Next, the editor tells the author about A, B, C, and D, and the author revises. And it’s difficult, but the author still loves the book, and the editor has a fresh perspective and also loves it, so that’s gratifying for everybody. The editor reads the revision. So much better! Except maybe C still needs a little work, and also now that A, B, and D are fixed, she’s noticed E and F are problems. Can the author fix those? Sure!

Once the author has worked through E and F, it’s time for “line edits” — that is, line-by-line, nitty-gritty adjustments to the whole darn book. These are hard work for the editor, sometimes painful for the author, but all in the interest of making the writing livelier and the whole book sharper. But unless they’re very carefully done and very carefully checked, line edits also lead to new errors, new repetition, new weirdness — some introduced when the line edits are inputted by the editor, some when the author reads and makes changes, and some more when the tracked edits are “accepted” into the manuscript file.

And by the time the editor’s been over the book with a fine-toothed comb, she’s read it four or five times and lost her fresh eyes, too. So now the editor can’t really read the book anymore without missing problems, and neither can the author.

Next comes copyediting, where clarity, consistency, and correctness are the goal. Fiction copyeditors do things like change “10” to “ten.” They also look at timelines and consistency errors, so they tend to ask questions like, “Is she still carrying her purse?” and (in one memorable case for me) “Did she ever put her shirt back on?”

Copyeditors bring fresh eyes to the project, which means they find new errors in the book and suggest new ways to fix them. Which is awesome. But unless they’re very careful and their work gets very carefully checked, they can also introduce new errors to the text. And so can the author when she checks the copyedits. And so can the copyeditor when she accepts the changes.

Sensing a theme?

Finally, the edited book gets laid out by the production department, and production also sometimes introduces errors when it’s coding e-books for vendors or laying out print books for the page. The laid-out and/or formatted book gets proofread by several sets of eyes, most of them weary because they’ve read the book nine times already,  and then it’s off to an e-reader or bookstore near you.

Probably with some errors in it.

So on behalf of editors and authors everywhere, I just want to say that we do try to bring you the cleanest possible product. It’s just that a book is a moving target, and perfection is difficult to achieve.

We predate your understanding.

Where to find About Last Night:

Amazon  

Barnes and Noble  

iBooks 

Blog Tour - Giveaway! Ride with Me by Ruthie Knox

Today we welcome author, Ruthie Knox who is promoting her book, Ride with Me.

Giveaway Details:
Ruthie has kindly offered up  a digital copy of Ride with Me to one lucky winner. Winners will pick up their copy through Net Galley. Just leave a comment with a valid e-mail address.  This will run until February 10. Good luck to all!

Author: Ruthie Knox
Publisher: Loveswept
Date of Publication: February 13, 2012

In this fun, scorching-hot eBook original romance by Ruthie Knox, a cross-country bike adventure takes a detour into unexplored passion. As readers will discover, Ride with Me is not about the bike!

When Lexie Marshall places an ad for a cycling companion, she hopes to find someone friendly and fun to cross the TransAmerica Trail with. Instead, she gets Tom Geiger — a lean, sexy loner whose bad attitude threatens to spoil the adventure she’s spent years planning.

Roped into the cycling equivalent of a blind date by his sister, Tom doesn’t want to ride with a chatty, go-by-the-map kind of woman, and he certainly doesn’t want to want her. Too bad the sight of Lexie with a bike between her thighs really turns his crank.

Even Tom’s stubborn determination to keep Lexie at a distance can’t stop a kiss from leading to endless nights of hotter-than-hot sex. But when the wild ride ends, where will they go next?

My thoughts:

I devoured this story. Ride with Me is a sweet romance about two people who set out on a journey to reach the other side of the country and end up finding something they never bargained for...each other.   I loved the chemistry between Lexie and Tom.  What a better way to get to know someone, then to ride across the country with them. They both grew some much over the trip and I was rooting for their HEA.   There is more to this story than just the romance.  It's really a tale about finding the balance in life where you can be happy and learn to live with the choices you have made.    I loved the author's use of Thoreau's Walden to help Tom find out how to achieve this.  Ride with Me is a quick read and one you won't want to pass up!  

Ruthie stopped by to share some thoughts with us:

Inspired at Last

I am thirty-four years old. For thirty-three of those years, I was not a writer, which is an odd thing, because I had all the equipment. I’m a reader of the most obsessive, devoted, addicted variety. I did the English major thing in college. I’ve learned my literary theory (God help me). As a kid, I wrote stories and attended all the weekend events for budding writers and joined the seventh-grade writing club.

What kept me from writing was that I didn’t have any stories in my head. I understood that this was how it worked: the writer had ideas. The ideas demanded exit through her fingers. Lacking those, I just didn’t see how one would begin, or why one would bother. What would be the point?

I rediscovered romance novels a few years ago, and I read as many of them as I could get my hands on. One day, at a yoga class, I had an idea for a romance novel of my own. I worked my way through sun salutations and standing poses and corpse pose at the end, and I thought, for the first time since I was a kid, about my own characters. My own plot. I thought of how a few of my own experiences might be reworked to become the stuff of a novel.

The next day, I started writing.

For me, the structure of romance was itself inspirational. The genre gives the author boundaries to work in, so the project became almost an assignment: Write a novel of 65,000 words in which two characters meet, fall in love, and overcome obstacles to find their happily-ever-after. (Never mind that this was a ridiculously simplified notion of what romance novels are all about. At the time, I was both ignorant and arrogant—qualities that my friend Serena Bell has since convinced me are essential to writerly happiness.)

I have always been an excellent student. I like assignments. Give me boundaries, and I am happy to innovate within them. Give me a blank notebook and no guidelines, and I will stare at it, uninspired, and claim not to be artistic. So the form of the romance novel gave me the structure I needed to find my legs as a novelist. I wrote three novel manuscripts in the space of a few months. I discovered that I did, in fact, have ideas, and that I loved to develop characters. I discovered that I had a ridiculous amount to learn, but that’s okay. I like learning. All I needed to become a writer, it turned out, was a direction.

Since then, I’ve found inspiration from dozens of directions. It’s as if I flipped a switch, and now my previously dormant writer-brain seeks out the sort of conflicts and interesting situations that work well in romance novels. I got an e-mail one day out of the blue from the manager of a rock band asking whether I’d be willing to design a custom sweater for the star of this band. (I used to do a lot of knitting, including some design.) Instead of thinking about sweaters, I thought, Man, that would make a great set-up for a romance novel. Now, does the heroine fall for the rock star, or does she fall for the guitar tech? What do they fight about? My writer-brain started thinking, started playing, started asking questions.

It never shuts off now. I have a file full of ideas that will probably go nowhere, but there are seeds in there, and they find unlikely places to grow. The inspiration for the novel that became Ride with Me came from flipping through the magazine of the Adventure Cycling Association and thinking idly about the “Companions Wanted” column, which helps cyclists who are planning a trip find like-minded folks to ride with. What would happen, I wondered, if a hero and heroine got matched up through that column, but neither got what they were expecting? What if they had to ride four thousand miles together and didn’t like each other. Ooh! Fun!

I had to find out, so I sat down and started writing.

About the Author:

Ruthie Knox figured out how to walk and read at the same time in the second grade, and she hasn’t looked up since. She spent her formative years hiding romance novels in her bedroom closet to avoid the merciless teasing of her brothers and imagining scenarios in which someone who looked remarkably like Daniel Day Lewis recognized her well-hidden sex appeal and rescued her from middle-class Midwestern obscurity. After graduating from Grinnell College with an English and history double major, she earned a Ph.D. in modern British history that she’s put to remarkably little use.

These days, she writes contemporary romance in which witty, down-to- earth characters find each other irresistible in their pajamas, though she freely admits this has yet to happen to her. Perhaps she needs more exciting pajamas. Ruthie abhors an epilogue and insists a decent romance requires at least three good sex scenes.