May 18th, 2012
The news broke on Twitter yesterday that author Monica Jackson had passed away. As reported by her daughter, she suffered complications from surgery in which her brain lost oxygen for a number of minutes. Our deepest condolences to her daughter and her family.
Monica was a romance author and a tireless advocate for African-American authors. She believed that romance is romance and that segregation in romance was no different from segregation anywhere. She participated in a column examining racism in romance here at AAR a few years ago that expresses her beliefs better than I ever could.
She was the squeakiest of squeaky wheels, not letting go even when she made people uncomfortable. Contrary to that old saying about the squeaky wheel always getting the grease, sometimes that just doesn’t happen. But that squeaky wheel sure as hell gets noticed. And sometimes even listened to.
RIP, Monica.
- Sandy AAR
Tags: monica jackson
Posted in Authors, Sandy AAR | 9 Comments »
May 17th, 2012
Introduction first: In case you were unaware of the 1000 Awesome Things blog, Neil Pasricha was at a down point in his life a couple of years ago, and decided to cheer himself up by blogging about the good, often unnoticed, things in life. When gas prices go down just as you need some gas. When you turn a pillow onto its fresh side. The fact that we exist. When a cashier opens a new cash line. You know – awesome things.
1000 posts and 3 bestsellers later, the blog is over. In (belated) honour of the 1000th post, I decided to write about the awesome things in romance. It’s been a good exercise, because too often I focus on the annoying or tedious in romance novels. But despite the bad stuff, there are many reasons I stick with romance novels, and they’re all awesome (in my opinion, anyway). So here, counting down, are my Five Awesome Romance Things.
5. You can’t please everyone, but you can please someone. Publishing is a transient business. Just think of all those thousands – no, millions of books that clutter used bookstores, books that are in and out of print, remembered and forgotten. But what’s great about romances is that even 999 people think a book’s absolute crap, there’s probably at least one person who finds it awesomer than Kraft Dinner.
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Tags: awesome blog, awesome things
Posted in Books, Characters, Heroes, Heroines, Jean AAR, Reading, Romance, Romance reading, Settings | 19 Comments »
May 16th, 2012
Before we had the tormented Carpathians, and the Black Dagger Brotherhood, not to mention Edward of the Twilight series, many people grew up watching Barnabas Collins on Dark Shadows. No doubt the show paved the way for the acceptance of romantic vampires today. Yet many of today’s tormented vampires can’t hold a candle to Barnabas. In fact, Barnabas was all about the candles. Candles, eerie music, cobwebs, fierce storms, crypts and graveyards. And unlike many vampires today, he was a true anti-hero.
Unlike many people from my generation, I didn’t grow up watching Dark Shadows all the time. I never seemed to get home at the right time, so I watched Captain Chesapeake instead. Still, although I was a scaredy-cat, I managed to sneak in a few episodes now and then.
When I heard that Tim Burton and Johnny Depp were working together on a Dark Shadows movie, my first reaction was “Perfect!” I couldn’t wait to see it. Then I realized that many fans were upset with the trailer because the movie comes across as a send-up. They are not amused. Or as my sister-in-law pointed out to be, fans took the show very seriously.
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Tags: barnabas collins, dark shadows
Posted in Anne AAR, Characters, Heroes, Movies, Television | 21 Comments »
May 14th, 2012
So, you’re a romance fan who’s new to audiobooks. Where do you start? Or, say you are an audio fan and want to explore the romance genre. Yet, when you look at the overwhelming number of available romance audiobooks, you have no idea where to start.
In our April column, Friends Helping Friends, we discussed the importance of seeking recommendations from those who have similar tastes to your own. As a beginner, it is all the more important that you seek solid recommendations since outstanding audiobooks are a combination of an author’s talent and a narrator’s skill. If a narrator can’t effectively deliver an author’s work, the audio version suffers. On the other hand, a talented narrator can transform a ho-hum read into an above average listen. And, as a beginner, you should consider these facts before committing to an audiobook.
Since the choosing can be difficult for the romance audio beginner, I’ve joined together with our audio reviewers to develop A Beginner’s Guide to Romance Audio. It’s a list of audiobooks by sub-genre that we consider easy listens. Not only is the story of high quality, but the narration is of such high quality as well that it flows effortlessly to a new listener’s ears.
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Tags: Audiobooks, speaking of audiobooks
Posted in Lea Hensley, audio books | 30 Comments »
May 11th, 2012
“Disability” can mean a whole lot of things: blindness, paralysis, amputated limbs, deafness, a chronic illness, brain damage. When I first started writing this blog, I thought it was a rare occurrence in romance novels. However, when I asked the staff here at AAR to brainstorm, we came up with a much longer list than I had anticipated.
In Virna DePaul’s upcoming book Shades of Desire, the heroine is coping with her recent loss of vision. Lily in Tessa Dare’s Three Nights With a Scoundrel is deaf, as are the heroines in Suzanne Brockman’s Into the Fire and Erin McCarthy’s Mouth To Mouth. Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: All About Romance, Catherine Anderson, Eloisa James, Erin McCarthy, Jill Barnett, Suzanne Brockmann, Tessa Dare
Posted in Characters, Jane AAR, Romance reading | 23 Comments »
May 10th, 2012
We’ve been having a lot of fun with Pandora’s Box lately here at AAR, and this month Lynn Spencer and Dabney Grinnan are taking a turn there. We decided to go for a European historical this month, and chose Harlequin Historicals author Marguerite Kaye’s latest release Rake With a Frozen Heart. The plot centers on an innocent governess, Henrietta Markham, who is rescued by a reputed rake, Rafe St. Alban, the Earl of Pentland. She remembers an attack by a thief, but little else, and after finding herself suspected of a crime, she ends up on the run with her rescuer. Henrietta has no intention of falling in love with Rafe and after the loss of his first wife, Rafe has no interest in marriage. However, Rafe does feel moved to help Henrietta clear her name and as they go about it, something about the way they deal with one another starts turning into attraction. This is shaping up to be a great year for historical reading, and with such a crowded field, it can be hard for one book to stand out. And as you can see, Dabney and Lynn have different takes on how this one fared.
Note: The discussion of this book contains some spoilers.
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Tags: All About Romance, Marguerite Kaye, Pandora's Box
Posted in Dabney AAR, Lynn AAR, Pandora's Box, Romance reading | 2 Comments »
May 9th, 2012
Growing up I read a lot of historical novels. Many were set in the U.S., most in rural areas like the Appalachian, Ozark, or Smoky Mountain regions, the backwoods of Kentucky or the bayous of Louisiana. They primarily took place between the Civil War and World War II. They featured young, plucky heroines who wanted more from life than what was available to them at home. Some, like Ballad of Calamity Creek and Christy , focused on young women who came to the mountains to offer people education and discovered wisdom and love in the rural areas where they worked. Others, like Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm or Heidi , involved young women leaving rural communities to better their opportunities. And still others, like the Little House on the Prairie saga simply showed what life on a farm or homestead was like. Invariably these heroines were cheerful, hardworking young women who embraced the honest values and down-to-earth life style of country living.
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Tags: All About Romance
Posted in Maggie AAR, Romance reading, Settings | 6 Comments »
May 8th, 2012
I don’t care if George Bernard Shaw gave us the greatest modern incarnation of the makeover myth – when it comes to teaching, he’s a pompous twat. On behalf of teachers around the world, I thumb my nose at you.
Today is National Teacher Day, and in honour of it I decided to blog about educators in romance. As I was thinking about books with teachers, I realized that compared to other professions, teachers actually get pretty good press. They know how to relate to children, are held to be intelligent and are usually hardworking; half the time they solve a mystery or two, and nine teachers out of ten figure out what’s wrong with the kid (absentee parent, lack of love, wanting to paint instead of do math, etc.) and use it to unite child with parent. Sure, there are the occasional boring tutors or cruel headmistresses, but they’re rarely bad enough to qualify as villains or evil.
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Tags: Jane Eyre, teacher's day
Posted in Books, Jean AAR, Reading | 23 Comments »
May 7th, 2012
Every month, I’m always curious to see which books are generating the most interest around here. Usually there’s a book or two that has lots of staffers looking for it. This June, we have plenty of reads that sound promising, but there’s a three-way tie for the book that interests the most staffers. We have a lot we want to read, but it looks like our staff is especially looking forward to the newest releases from Julia Quinn, Rachel Gibson and Carla Kelly. What about you?
|
Title and Author |
Reviewer |
 |
A Night Like This by Julia Quinn |
Sandy, Lynn,Blythe, Louise, Lee, Wendy,Dabney |
 |
Rescue Me by Rachel Gibson |
LinnieGayl, Maggie, Dabney, Lea, Wendy, Leigh, Heather S. |
 |
Marriage of Mercy by Carla Kelly |
Blythe, Lynn, Heather S., Lee, Wendy, Jean, Maggie |
 |
Spring Fever by Mary Kay Andrews |
Maggie, Leigh, LinnieGayl |
 |
Gone Missing by Linda Castillo |
Lynn, Maggie |
 |
Tangle of Need by Nalini Singh |
Cindy, Maggie |
 |
Happily Ever After by Harriet Evans |
Lee |
 |
Beautiful Sacrifice by Elizabeth Lowell |
Heather S. |
 |
Slow Summer Kisses by Shannon Stacey |
Lynn |
|
 |
The Player by Jessica Bird/J.R.Ward |
Cindy |
|
 |
A Gentleman Undone by Cecilia Grant |
Lee |
 |
Lucky in Love by Jill Shalvis |
Dabney |
 |
One Naughty Night by Laurel McKee |
Lynn |
 |
Hex Appeal by P.N. Elrod (ed.) |
Wendy |
 |
The Hypnotist’s Love Story by Liane Moriarty |
Lee |
 |
No One Left to Tell by Karen Rose |
Maggie |
Tags: All About Romance, Eagerly Awaited, Eagerly Awaiting
Posted in Lynn AAR, Romance reading | 5 Comments »
May 4th, 2012
Last month I blogged about class romance authors I wish would come back; in particular, I mentioned Judy Cuevas’ Bliss, which I’d recently read, and how it would be on my reading list for Romance Novels 101, assuming such a course ever existed (and that they would pull me out of the ranks of peons to teach it, of course).
So I decided to do some digging, and Googled “romance novels course.” And lo and behold, they exist! Kind of. The London School of Journalism, NYU, and Ryerson (in Toronto) offer romance novel creative writing, and some popular lit courses have romance components.
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Tags: academic, romance novel course
Posted in Authors, Books, Jean AAR, Reading, Romance reading | 22 Comments »
