I think sometimes we tend to get tunnel vision when choosing books, so that the only ones we ever see or consider are the biggest authors, from the biggest publishers -- especially in the romance genre, which is huge, and there are plenty of big names to keep us busy for a lifetime.  But every once in a while, I try to remember to pick up a book by a lesser known author, and more often than not I find them just as good as the big name books.

A Certain Wolfish Charm was like that for me.  I'd never heard of Lydia Dare, but I downloaded the ebook from Barnes & Noble last year when it was free for a while -- a promotion to get readers started on the rest of the author's books, I'm sure.

I had just gotten done reading a time travel romance from a bigger name author when I read A Certain Wolfish Charm -- which is, as you may have guessed, a werewolf romance.  I was surprised how much better it was -- a pretty good story, well-written love scenes, and no corny references to "his manhood."

There are actually a lot of great authors out there that aren't big names or published by the big publishing houses, but because of bookstore displays, often the only names and titles we know are the big ones.  Luckily that is -- slowly -- starting to change, because the Internet and ebooks have opened up more opportunities for authors, including greater visibility for small presses, and POD and digital publishing for authors who want to self-publish.

I'd love to start a list of recommendations of little-known romance authors in the comments to this post.  What are your favorites?