Linda Howard is an American novelist who first came to prominence in the early 1980s, writing category romances for Silhouette. Amazingly in this age of the internet, she does not have her own website. Despite this, she has become immensely popular among the romance reading fraternity.

Her early novels for Silhouette all featured ultra alpha heroes and ever-so-slightly submissive women who in real life would have been totally subsumed by such domineering men but in the world of romance, manage to tame their man. In all honesty, I could not recommend any of these early books which include love scenes almost akin to rape in some instances, and certainly any liberated woman worth her salt would fling the books against the wall.

As Linda Howard moved away from category romance into the longer single title romance field, her books became even more popular. She still retained the alpha hero, though slightly more toned down for the more liberated times in which they were written. Her heroines also became more feisty and prepared to stand up for themselves. But the thing that really got Linda Howard noticed were the raunchy love scenes. This lady does not pull her punches when writing about sex in all its gritty realism. These scenes could never be called gratuitous as they definitely are an integral part of the stories conveying the raw passion felt by her main characters.

It was during this period that, in my opinion, she wrote some of her best work. These books were escapist romances with attractive and sexy leading men and women and strong storylines. She stuck mainly to a contemporary theme during this period with the exception of Son of the Morning, considered by many to be her best book, which deals with time travel; the hero being a Knight Templar and the heroine an historical researcher from the present day.

Towards the end of this period of novel writing, Linda Howard wrote the book which is my favourite: Mr Perfect. Four friends compile a list of qualities which make the perfect man. But what began as a joke soon escalates and when the list finds its way into the public domain and one of the friends is murdered, it becomes deadly serious. Of all her books, this one has everything: a sexy yet liberated hero, a feisty heroine, a good storyline and a very satisfying ending.

This was the beginning of a period where Linda Howard moved from purely romance novels with a little bit of suspense to writing fully-fledge suspense novels with some romance elements. And she even managed to work some humour into a couple of her novels, most notably To Die For and Drop Dead Gorgeous.

Up until the last couple of years, I would have put Linda Howard books on my list of must buys, but sadly her most recent offerings have left me cold. She seems to have developed a fascination with killers. In Kiss Me While I Sleep pubished in 2007, she tells the story of a woman contract killer, and tries to make her acceptable because she kills for the CIA. Sorry, but I think a killer is a killer is a killer. Her last book, Death Angel, takes the most unpromising couple ever, a hired killer and a woman who is little better than a prostitute, and attempts to redeem them. Again, I found it hard to accept that either of these people could ever be redeemed and I found myself merely skimming the second part of the book because I could find nothing to like in any of the characters.

It could be that Linda Howard is trying to push the envelope and other readers may find these sort of characters perfectly acceptable but for me it a complete turn off.

As she is a prolific writer, I have refrained from listing all her books. I'm sure if people want to read her novels, they will be able to find a complete bibliography on websites such as Amazon or Fantastic Fiction.

To summarise Linda Howard's books would be difficult. There is no doubt that her writing skills have improved over the last twenty or so years and she has written some gripping stories in her time. If you enjoy pure romance with a hefty dose of raunch, I would suggest you stick to her earlier books, if you enjoy well written romantic suspense, go for her middle period, say from 1993 to about 2003, and if you don't have a problem with the morality of killing, then you may enjoy her most recent couple of books.

I shall probably continue to read her books but I have to admit that Linda Howard is currently no longer on my list of favourite writers.