Ann: You never know—there are a surprising number of cookbooks out there with some very… interesting… errors in them. Some of them in quite unexpected places. Have you considered trying Bracken’s Compleat I Hate to Cook Book? It’s meant for people who either don’t like to cook or think they’re terrible at it, but the food’s surprisingly good.

BooksPlease: HA! I love your subtitle!

bethany: To be fair, I didn’t start getting romances as review copies until after I’d read & reviewed a few on my own. I wouldn’t review books in a genre that I was incapable of enjoying—I think it would be unfair to those authors. I always try to limit myself to accepting books that I have at least some interest in or curiosity about.

trish: Any time I run into someone who thinks that you don’t need to make some of the recipes in a cookbook in order to review it, I bring out that story. It’s a very entertaining way to make the point.

I think romances are enjoyable simply because when we read books we want to be made to feel something, and love is one of those most basic and enjoyable of feelings. The best romances, though, in my opinion, work the romance into another overall plot, so the romance isn’t the only thing going on.

Melody: It’s interesting that the stereotypes take so long to change even after the books have changed, eh?

Jennifer: For some reason people tend to not think of cookbooks as having errors, which is interesting because I find errors in cookbooks all the time. It’s why cookbook reviews by people who haven’t made any of the recipes out of the cookbook drive me insane!

And thanks for talking about reviewing romances. I’ve never been into romance, but I hear they’re they number one seller in book stores…I guess there must be a reason for that.

happy Thursday!

Lezlie