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Best New Romantic Fantasy 2 (v. 2) | 
 enlarge | Authors: Paula Guran, Sarah Monette, Delia Sherman
Publisher: Juno Books
Category: Book
List Price: $13.95
Buy New: $1.77
You Save: $12.18 (87%)
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Avg. Customer Rating:  3 reviews
Sales Rank: 1275992
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 320
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.5
Dimensions (in): 8.1 x 5.2 x 0.9
ISBN: 0809557843
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.0873808054
EAN: 9780809557844
ASIN: 0809557843
Publication Date: June 20, 2007
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
An annual anthology of outstanding stories of love and wonder are compiled and honored as the best of the year. Enchanting and enchanted lovers, magical romance, dark desires, otherworldly sensations, ethereal encounters, paranormal thrills, sensual spells, supernatural suspense, sizzling speculations... Highly imaginative short fiction and novellas from the best fantasy romance writers.
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| Customer Reviews:
 Less accessible follow-up anthology September 21, 2007
Despite the revised title this is the follow-up to the anthology "Best New Paranormal Romance" which was an excellent book. However this book was quite different in tone (with different contributors), as is discussed in the excellent introduction, and didn't feel comfortable as a continuation of the series. These stories are overall darker in tone with less of an obvious Happy Ever After (which one tends to expect in romantic fantasy). Many of the stories were quite difficult to understand as the complex worlds were being crammed into short stories. The writing standard was generally very high with no turgid prose but often beautiful turns of phrase but many of the stories felt to me like they were rather more form than substance.
The story I most liked was Sarah Monette's "The Light In Troy" about the last member of a conquered race who works in a library and sees a young boy playing on the beach and befriends him. It's a gentle story with a minimal romantic element but was well written. Other highlights were "Moon Viewing at Shijo Bridge" by Richard Parks which had a wonderful twist (although one I did half expect), "Jane, A Story of Magic, Manners And Romance" by Sarah Prineas set in Regency times and yet with wizards and the very short "The Desires Of Houses" which gave a fascinating insight into what your house might think of you.
Ones I found less successful were "An Autumn Butterfly" (I couldn't quite get my head around it, which is no doubt more a reflection on me than the story itself), "Evergreen" (which seemed to go on and on without much action), "the Depth Oracle" (too deep for me) and "The Wizard Of Eternal Watch" which felt like part of a series and I wasn't always sure what was going on.
The fifteen stories are all completely different from each other and this variety makes for a good book to dip into but very few of them are light reading matter and the complexities of the plots in most cases means that this book is less accessible than the previous edition.
Originally published for Curled Up With A Good Book, www.curledup.com. Helen Hancox 2007
 fifteen well written romantic fantasies August 15, 2007
This anthology consists of fifteen well written romantic fantasies published in various sources in 2006. The tales are fun to read as one's soulmate might be a soul stealer as opposites attract and love does not guarantee a fairy tale happy ever after though it does make the Guren world go round; more often elliptical rather than circular. There are no clinkers as each of the chosen stories is a solid entry though the short format does not lend itself to fully developed paranormal elements. Those excellent few that do typically contain a vivid location make the fantasy seem genuine; especially gripping are the haunting coastal "Journey into the Kingdom" by M. Rickert and the forest of "Evergreen" by Angela Boord. Sub-genre readers will appreciate this fine anthology whether the stars are witches, elves, fairies and various assortments of ilk from other realms as a virtual who's who (O'Keefe, Friesner, Monette, etc.) contribute. As an aside the first volume is actually titled the BEST NEW PARANORMAL ROMANCE.
Harriet Klausner
Sequel to Best New Paranormal Romance June 29, 2007
4 out of 4 found this review helpful
The highlights of this book for me were Haddayr Copley-Woods' 'The Desires of Houses' and Delia Sherman's 'La Fee Verte.' 'The Desires of Houses' is a short piece about one of my favourite subjects, the personalities of inanimate objects, and 'La Fee Verte' is about a 19th century French prostitute who has visions of the future (and past).
The contents list for this anthology is:
'An Autumn Butterfly' by Esther Friesner
'A Light in Troy' by Sarah Monette
'The Moment of Joy Before' by Claudia O'Keefe
'Jane. A Story of Manners, Magic, and Romance' by Sarah Prineas
'Journey into the Kingdom' by M. Rickert
'Wizard of the Eternal Watch' by Eugie Foster
'Moon Viewing at Shijo Bridge' by Richard Parks
'The Depth Oracle' by Sonya Taaffe
'Smoke & Mirrors' by Amanda Downum
'The Desires of Houses' by Haddayr Copley-Woods
'Evergreen' by Angela Boord
'The Red Envelope' by David Sakmyster
'The Mountains of Key West' by Sandra McDonald
'The Story of Love' by Vera Nazarian
'Le Fee Verte' by Delia Sherman
The Sarah Monette story was elegantly written, as always. It's about the last survivor of a conquered fortress, who has been put to work as a library slave. The Vera Nazarian story was good, but I'd already read it in Salt of the Air, a really good all-Nazarian collection. 'The Red Envelope' is a neat story about a man married to a Taiwanese ghost. Sarah Prineas' 'Jane' is a lot of fun, about a Regency-like society where a young woman is being harassed by wizards. 'The Depth Oracle' is well-written but a little too dense for me.
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