When I began writing After All, I had no idea the main plot would lead to a secondary story about a pregnant teenager, Whitney, who came from an abusive home. The first two books in my Warriors of the Heart series are emotionally driven, and I wanted After All to deliver the same deep feelings. After I finished writing the story, I was left with a longing to help children […]
Thanks for your patience. Our original poll didn’t, as was strongly pointed out to us on Twitter, include any books by black authors. And, once that was pointed out to us, we knew THAT poll didn’t reflect the values of AAR.
So, using reader feedback and information from Goodreads and Amazon, we’ve expanded the poll to be more representative of all of romance. And, we’ve doubled the number of write-in choices allowed so that everyone can make sure their top ten has a shot.
Here’s how this will work.
This is a new poll. So, if you filled out the poll before, you’ll need to do so again.
There will be four rounds and each will only be open for two weeks. You can vote once in each round.
Round 1: Select as many books as you want from the list provided. It is meant to just be a starting point. There are fifty books on it–the list will ultimately have 100 books. Then, […]
Today I want to discuss something near and dear to my heart, the feminist hero. How often we’ve read the alpha male, the alpha-hole, the beta and several other male character archetypes— I can say I’m drawn to alpha’s (swoon). As I started on this writing journey I believed my future was in writing alpha males, typical to the ones I’d read in the past. The problem is my heroes were never going to be true to their contemporaries.
They aren’t always beta or alpha, and it appeared they fell somewhere in between. Rough and tough when they needed to be, sensitive to their feelings, defenders of those bullied or under attack, and often found themselves doing the opposite of what other males in their life tell them they should do.
I essentially […]
I experienced all of these things at my father’s funeral in 2012. These revelations brought new context to my entire life. The King of Halloween and Miss Firecracker Queen is my effort to synthesize what I thought was true about my life and what I learned was true about my life, my parents, and their love story.
My father was the typical small town football star whose ticket out of Cartersville, Georgia was a football scholarship. My mother was a debutant wanna-be with captivating looks and a sense of herself. They met in the fall of 1956 at the Fall Football Banquet […]
I’ve always loved a rugged, outdoorsy hero. Lately I’ve been attracted to wilderness settings more than ever. I compiled a list of my recent favorites featuring mountains, climbing and extreme adventures.
Westfield is a new author to me and a gem of a find. Her gravity-defying hero is a free solo rock climber, which means he climbs without ropes. No ropes, on Yosemite’s highest granite walls! The heroine is an aspiring filmmaker hired to […]
Introducing Miss KittyMiss Kitty is not a fan of paranormal romance as a rule. After all, she has her own fangs, and she prefers not to associate with canids of any kind, even those who most often wear human clothing. Stories that revolve around pack tensions in canine societies or the fated soul-mates of vampires or demons leave her cold.
No, Miss Kitty likes humans. Or what they leave behind. The stuff of their souls. This appears most often in ghost form, […]
While most writers will deny that any of their characters are based on actual people, I’m here to tell you, they’re not being entirely honest. I’m not going to lie to you-I admit that one of the secondary characters in my new contemporary romance, Barreled Over, is based on my husband’s grandfather.
When I outlined Barreled Over, the first book in my new Trinity Distillery series, I had no intention of creating a character based on Grandpa Mike. But his appearance is no coincidence. Let me tell you how it happened…
I […]
For me, it seems as if it’s been ages ago. The fact is, I tend to be a bit of a homebody, and it’s a wonder that I ever get out with my friends. But once we’re all together, I ask myself why we don’t do this more often—dinner, drinks, maybe even some shopping—to reconnect. Family, work, home all make the top of the priority list, don’t they? That is often our reality.
In romance novels, however, girlfriends are always a huge part of the story. They are the glue that holds the heroine together when she feels that her world is unraveling. They are her cheerleaders for her new relationship, encouraging her to dive in and love without bounds. And they are the first ones to embrace her when […]
Let me explain. The fall of my sophomore year of college, a guy asked me out. He was athletic and funny, crazy about sports and always ready with a smart remark—basically my complete opposite. He was also a graduate student in the Harvard Mathematics Department, and he had taught more math than I would ever learn. I wasn’t sure what to expect—frankly he was a little intimidating. He had helped me with a few problem sets and I thought the “date” might be his attempt at telling me I should consider a new field of study, after seeing how I cursed at everything topology.
My friends told me to go for it. Boy, were they right.
It’s 100% true that the sexiest part of a man is his brain. We went on dates to the […]
