Sakura of DOOM

As mentioned previously, went to Borders yesterday and ogled at their extensive manga section. Not only that, but the one in Sunnyvale has a shelf of untranslated manga! For a very expensive price about twice as much as Kinokuniya, but still! Just the fact that they have them there makes me really happy. Also, browsing that, I discovered that Watsuki Nobuhiro (the guy who wrote Rurouni Kenshin, the first manga I ever read) has a new series out!! But not in English, it appears =(. Booo.

For some reason, I'm on a bit of a manga and non-fiction kick these days, which is a rather odd combination. Yesterday night I started reading Philip Gourevitch's We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed With Our Families, about the genocide that took place in Rwanda in 1994, since I wanted to know more after watching The Interpreter. And then my mind was apparently still preoccupied with manga, because I dreamt very strange dreams about ethnic cleansing and browsing the manga section at Borders, which was incredibly disturbing.

Does anyone have any good African history recs, btw? I know absolutely nothing about it, and I feel I should.

Have about read all of Connie Brockway's backlist by now, still digging up more Crusie's and digging up the Wyckerley trilogy for Patricia Gaffney, but I've run out of romance authors again.

Tried trolling around All About Romance to check out the Desert Island reviews, but a lot of those are hit or miss with me, so asking for recs right now.

On my list, next time I visit Book Rack:
- Laura Leone's Fallen From Grace
- Anne Stuart, Moon Rise
- Tracy Grant
- Judy Cuevas, if I can ever dig her up
(all stolen from melymbrosia)

I dislike: heroines who are too stupid to live, too spirited in that Judith McNaught way, too cute, or too perfect. I have tried and do not particularly like Jo Beverley, Mary Jo Putney (I've read three, China Bride being the last, and yes, I really did throw that against a wall), Judith McNaught (outgrown), Teresa Medeiros, Jayne Anne Krentz/Amanda Quick, Robin Schone, Johanna Lindsey, Brenda Joyce, Andrea Kane and probably a ton of others I've never read. Wow. I think I'm pickier than I realized. I also tend to dislike alpha bastards with tortured pasts, but if they have tortured pasts and turned out to be nice, give 'em to me. They are also acceptable paired up with a cold, alpha-ish heroine.

I like: Connie Brockway, some Patricia Gaffney, Jennifer Crusie, Nora Roberts (sometimes mediocre but never so bad I can't read them), Laura Kinsale, Judith Ivory (well, often admire but can't get in, but they are still eminently readable). I also adore Shana Abe's The Secret Swan but hated her Rose in Winter, so she's still up in the air. I also have a thing for Elizabeth Lowell (hey, first author I read) even though she's got horrible bastardy heroes and too-sweet heroines and really awful language (must all the heroines smell like a certain flower?). I also love strong yet quiet heroines, books that turn around genre tropes, and most importantly, good writing. I just tried Mary Balogh and found for some reason I'm not in the right frame of mind for the language. Ditto with Jo Beverley.

I'm a sucker for any kind of childhood unrequited crush that gets requited (is that even a word?), heroines who have had their hearts broken, heroes who fall in love first and aren't scared to admit it, nice guy heroes who lose control, and quiet heroes and heroines with a lot of hidden angst (All Through the Night!). Unequal power in favor of the alpha hero tends to piss me off. I'm very fond of American historicals when done right, almost anything turn of the century, westerns, and the Victorian period. I also like a delicate balance between PC-ness and period correctness.

I've started and never finished: Christina Dodds, Lorraine Heath, Mary Balogh, Julie Garwood (oh wait, have, oops), and others.

I am very sick of most romances that go along the Judith McNaught or Elizabeth Lowell vein (innocent, dewy-faced young heroines protesting their innocence to older men who think women are just for sex). But, hey, the right writer could work wonders...

Um. Any recs? Or did I just scare everyone off? =( Maybe I will (finally) pick up Heyer...