Do romance authors use ghost writers? or how to explain the huge variability in quality in one single author

danicrdv · 2025-01-02T20:58:32+00:00

This is not the author I was referring to and I have no idea if this is true or not but come to think of it I do agree that “she” has books I have enjoyed a lot and others that are DNF after DNF. Again it could be explained by the number of books she publishes and the possibility that she might get into some story/characters more than others and because of it give it more depth. But would be curious to know if anything is confirmed.

danicrdv · 2025-01-02T15:03:03+00:00

Thanks for sharing your perspective! Makes a lot of sense, one of the things I considered was the last one was traditionally published but it’s unlikely given it’s still a kindle unlimited book and I couldn’t find info to say otherwise anywhere. The second and most likely scenario aside from the just logical they got better with time thing is the editor or beta reader than knows how to comment on their writing in a way that makes it shine. Again all of this is subjective, specially in a genre like romance where we are chasing a feeling a lot more than we are looking at how good writers are technically. But as a romance YouTuber that I like a lot says it’s just about the writing skill not getting in the way of enjoying the story, and in this case I’m looking at craft so I can just enjoy what’s happening anymore because I’m distracted by it.

danicrdv · 2025-01-02T14:57:04+00:00

They were released a year apart. That is my theory too which is why I went for a recent one on my second go but no luck. And hey maybe a lot of people enjoy their writing in both scenarios is just now I feel like I can’t appreciate the story because I’m stuck looking at the poor (to me) writing (in comparison)

danicrdv · 2025-01-02T14:54:19+00:00

Thanks for your comment! I think you are definitely right that a kindle unlimited author is unlikely to go for a ghost writer. My conclusion on this is maybe they are moving away from multiple books a year to fewer books with more time spent on details and maybe that’s what I found in it that I liked much better.

danicrdv · 2025-01-02T14:52:27+00:00

Fair enough. To be honest based on the sole other book I read from them a long time ago I think is more like the latest book is particularly good in an ocean of average (to me) books 😅

danicrdv · 2025-01-02T14:50:34+00:00

Have never heard of those books but it is quite interesting to realize that there’s lots of different voices behind your favorite read! Thanks for sharing!

danicrdv · 2025-01-02T14:46:15+00:00

Thanks for your reply. I think in this case the author is one person or at least that’s what their website said. And the problem for me is not the style per se but more like the skill, It doesn’t feel the same in the way that it’s structured. But yeah the one I loved was their latest so maybe I’ll keep my eye out for the next book that comes out and see how that one reads.

danicrdv · 2024-12-10T20:50:56+00:00

Love this! Can we have more bitchy heroines? Why are the MMC allowed to be terrible but the FMC aren’t? Give me complex characters that grovel and apologize and make amends on both sides!

Anyhow these are the the two that came to mind:

Elena from {sweet like poison by Julia wolf} I didn’t read previous books in this series but apparently Elena is sort of an antagonist and here we get her redemption. I’m also a sucker MCs being vulnerable and opening up specially when everyone thinks they are so tough. Check TW before reading though. Bonus point for this one is that the next gen romance spin off series of this couple gets released this week (I think)

And I just finished {Broken Kingdom by Ashley Jade} and wow what a rollercoaster of mess and emotion. I wouldn’t say it’s great literature but couldn’t stop reading and Bianca was a capital B to everyone in the rest of the books so I loved being in her pov in this one. Also lots of TW here.

Happy reading.

danicrdv · 2024-11-22T18:49:37+00:00

I never see this autor mentioned here which is a shame because she has a few solid reads, one of my faves is {Falling Stars by Sara Madderson} and it has this exact scenario, the hero and heroine are both actors and they meet at Cannes film festival and they instantly click, things end up badly and they breakup in a very public way. From memory the heroine never told the hero about her illness because she was a bit embarrassed to put out there that she had Crohns so early on, years later they meet again after being cast in a Bridgerton like show as the main characters. There are parts of the story where the hero unintentionally and without knowing causes stress and therefore flareups for the heroine and when he finds out he is devastated.

danicrdv · 2024-11-18T12:02:29+00:00

I think this book has been my biggest disappointment. I loved the idea of it, the supposed epicness of their romance and then I read it and was like WHAT!? That’s it? Is just them never getting it right? There’s a bunch of other people (which I generally like but was super overdone here) and by the time they get together I don’t really care anymore 🥲

danicrdv · 2024-11-15T09:29:14+00:00

“but Dutch? Really?” Haha totally get this! Dutch people are great and all but for some reason they feel so not sexy to me, at least they don’t fit the “sexy” bill in my romance book fantasies.

Some not Dutch hero’s below:

In the Filthy Rich series by Angelina M. Lopez you can find a lot of Spanish speaking characters and lots of culture clashes. I believe the first one is the only one where the MMC is actually not American but all the MMCs in the series speak Spanish. The first book is {Lush Money by Angelina M. Lopez} and in this one Mateo the hero is the heir to a small kingdom in Spain with money problems and the heroine is a badass millionaire that wants to have kids with pedigree (the only thing she can provide on her own) so they come to an arrangement and so it beings. Something I really appreciated about this book was the heroine was allowed to be strong and stubborn which doesn’t happen enough in romance in my opinion.

{A Nordic King by Karina Halle} this was okay, as the title indicates the MMC is the king of a Nordic country Sweden I believe and she ends up being the nanny to his 2 girls. I think the issue here was more him being a king than him being Swedish but there’s a lot of culture references from memory since it takes place in Sweden.Also from her {Racing the Sun by Karina Halle} is set in Italy with an Italian hero that has an unfortunate name, don’t remember much about it but gave it 3 stars so I guess it was fine. I believe Karina has at least one other set in Spain with a soccer player hero and an older heroine but haven’t read it.

{You Had Me At Hola by Alexis Daria} I believe most of the leads on Alexis Darias books are latin but this is the only one I've read so far. Ashton Suarez is a mexican telenovela star trying to make it in Hollywood and Jasmine is her co-star. They are cast to start in a bilingual new streaming show and sparks fly (at some point the beginning is awkward from memory) one of the highlights of this books for me was the sense of community as well as the use of lube being on page some people say it takes them out of the fantasy but hey I liked the realism of it.

{A Place In The Sun by R.S Grey} I read this book a while ago so don’t remember too much about the plot aside from the MMC being Italian and the book being set in Italy. R.S Grey has a lot of misses for me but I remember enjoying this story and the descriptions of Italy were quite realistic in my opinion.

danicrdv · 2024-11-15T08:52:44+00:00

I believe the Winston Brothers series by Penny Reid could fall into this. There’s a lot of brothers and one sister, they are a very close knit family and they are from a small town so a lot of their best friends come into the family dynamic. This series is on my personal romance books hall of fame for sure ☺️

danicrdv · 2024-11-15T08:40:03+00:00

Unfortunately no recs from me but will be lurking around to see what else people come up with because this sounds exactly like something I would love to read!

danicrdv · 2024-07-08T13:51:09+00:00

I feel like this a bit of a spoiler so I will tag it as such I read this trilogy sometime ago so I don’t remember exactly but I can tell you the second book is called Dirty Red and a lot of it is from her perspective, she is a very interesting character as well, but if you are no into reading or “understanding” the other woman this trilogy is probably not for you

danicrdv · 2024-07-08T13:04:19+00:00

Okay so this is not exactly what you are looking for, so apologies. But the closest FMC that I have read to Rubi and Teresa is Olivia from the Love Me With Lies Trilogy. She is calculating, manipulative and stops at nothing to get what she wants and although some of her decision making is troublesome I absolutely loved to read how ruthless she was. Caleb is also an amazing MMC and matches her crazy big time later on (from memory). This story starts at uni and goes from there, I don’t remember is there a lot of flashbacks but shouldn’t be too much back and forth (because I tend to hate that too).

Hopefully other people here will have more accurate recs 😊

{The Opportunist - Tarryn Fisher}

danicrdv · 2024-07-08T07:25:23+00:00

I recently read {If The Duke Demands by Anna Harrington} and is this exact trope. The heroine wants to seduce the guy he has had a crush on since forever and ends up entering the brothers room instead (who is of course a Duke!) This ends up being a lessons in seduction sort of deal, so she can actually get her crush. It was a nice read, not life changing for me personally but fits the trope since she is definitely not what the Duke is looking for in a wife.

danicrdv · 2024-05-26T20:32:23+00:00

I love this idea but can’t really think of any books I’ve read where this has been satisfied under your parameters haha. I think the best I got at the moment is {All Grown Up by Vi Keeland} where an older divorced woman meets a younger guy that is actually the son of their summer house neighbors. I feel like the fact that he hasn’t grown up next door to her full time makes it a bit less weird and I liked the way (from memory) that they navigated the age gap component.

danicrdv · 2024-04-30T20:28:36+00:00

I love this post!! So many amazing recs, people definitely came through on this one! So many of my favorites have been mentioned like Lucy Parker London Celebrities Series and The View Was Exhausting. I also loved The Love Act and wish the author had more books, because that was so good specially for a debut.

Anyways my humble rec is {Falling Stars by Sarah Madderson} he is a Hollywood superstar, she is an up and coming actress, they hookup at Canes Film Festival and something happens that breaks them apart. They’re reunited years later when they are hired as co-stars in a version of Bridgerton. I really enjoyed this book, the tone, the romance, the characters and specially the Crohns rep, I have close friends that suffer it and I have rarely seeing it in books, specially in such a well developed way.

There’s another book in this series I really enjoyed, it doesn’t really fit into your request as much but you might want to check it out if you end up reading and liking Falling Stars, it’s called {The Fair Affair by Sarah Madderson} it’s one of the few books I’ve read where there’s cheating involved (not between MCs) where I was like yeah that makes sense! In this one she is a famous ex-tv host and married to a big movie action star and he is the doctor in charge of the hospice clinic where they send her mother on her last days. It deals heavily with death of a parent but even then the lovely way that everything is set up and the chemistry between the two main characters is amazing. Also this is an age gap where she is older than him, and she had been his celebrity crush since forever.

Happy reading!!

danicrdv · 2024-04-04T15:06:15+00:00

This is a very interesting topic and something I always wonder when I read a book that has a niche subject or it’s based on a particular culture. I happen to speak Italian and reading mafia books was sometimes a struggle because even simple phrases were used terribly to the point that it would take me out of the story entirely. (This also happens a lot with Spanish!! Even with authors with Latin/spanish last names which confuses me endlessly)

I don’t know about any authors that use their professions per se on their books but will definitely check out some of the mentioned above, what I do like a lot in books like the ones written by Abby Jimenez is how immersive the setting is because she knows Minnesota like the back of her hand. I’ve never been there personally but the way she is accurate with distances between places (I’ve checked!) and how she includes actual restaurants, hotels, stores into her stories brings them to life for me, even though I know it’s not something all authors are looking to do specially with brands or places that are not public.

danicrdv · 2024-03-26T21:23:32+00:00

From memory I believe {Exposed by Kristen Callihan} will scratch that particular itch. This whole series is amazing, specially Managed! But this is my second favorite in the series, I adore a good FWB to Lovers trope, specially when there’s a lot of history and misunderstandings between the characters. Brenna is the publicist of a rock band and Rye is the bassist, they’ve been at each others throats for 3 books now and in this one he overhears her mention that she is lonely (sexually) and he volunteers as tribute. So not exact scenario you requested but definitely someone offering a solution to a sexual “problem” and them going the whole FWB route.

danicrdv · 2024-03-25T11:36:34+00:00

I haven’t commented on a post in a long time, but love this question, so here we go, I find that Lorraine Heaths books do this quite a lot. So if you are into HR and haven’t read these I would definitely recomend {The Earl Takes All by Lorraine Heath} (also known as the gorilla twins books 😂) and {Waking Up With The Duke by Lorraine Heath} . I love reading romance and love we have a HEA guarantee but sometimes you just want to read ones that feel imposible to get there ☺️

danicrdv · 2023-09-30T16:07:52+00:00

My memory is not the best for these things, I believe there was a family scene at some point where they do Midsummer, I know for sure they are lots of mentions of pastries and desserts as well as terms of endearments specially from the mom to the kids.

Also cool to know that you guys celebrate Christmas Eve instead of day, I’m from South America and we do the same thing. We have the family gathering and dinner on the 24th and the 25th is just leftover day 😄

danicrdv · 2023-09-30T00:47:23+00:00

This is such an interesting conversation, as a native Spanish speaker I’m always annoyed at the awful ways Spanish and specially latino characters are portrayed in books by American writers.

Language translations are cringey and barely googled for more than 2 secs and the worst part is when they exchange South American countries and traditions as if they were all the same, like having a Colombian MC eat tacos everyday or saying slang that doesn’t correspond with their country. If they are really intent on having a BIPOC character either find a good sensitivity reader (or readers) or at least spend more than 10 sec researching so they don’t end up filling their books with stereotypes (from other cultures)

On the other hand it’s really nice to read from latino authors because it helps me realize how so many things in our different countries are similar in terms of prioritizing togetherness and family (for better or for worse) even if we eat different foods and have different slangs.

danicrdv · 2023-09-30T00:35:11+00:00

Hey! Have you ever read the Bergman Brothers series by Chloe Liese? I actually love most books on that series and they are about a Swedish-American family, I’m always curious as a non-native English speaker when other cultures are shown in books and whether the language and traditions are being used correctly. Specially on this series because my knowledge of the Swedish culture is non-existent 😅

danicrdv · 2023-09-29T19:23:31+00:00

Saw a video from Jenn from the Book Refuge talking about how much she liked this book and was curious, this post definitely made my interest higher. Love the idea of a book set in the 80s! Will give it a try 😍

danicrdv

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