We both went in similar directions with TBR Challenge this month. The prompt gave us a choice between paranormal and romantic suspense, and as it turns out, Caz and I both headed in the suspense direction. Caz chose a solid romantic suspense thriller with plenty of action while I went in a more humorous mystery direction. […]
Today, we’re publishing something unusual. It’s a story by Blythe Pulsipher Smith who’s been an integral part of AAR for many years. Earlier this fall, Blythe lost her husband, Mike, to cancer. This piece is, in part, about their love story. […]
I am one of those people who’s always playing catch-up in my reading. Every year, I frantically use the DIK Power Search and cram as many books in as I can before choosing my top reads at the end of it. […]
Here we are, heading into the back end of the year with our regular monthly look at the books we’re most excited about reading over the coming weeks. As usual, this is just a small selection of the books released every month – we can’t include them all, so please drop by and let us know if you’re looking forward to something you think we should know about! […]
Some months the TBR Challenge leaves us scratching our heads and digging deep into our overflowing TBR piles to find a book that fits the prompt. However, this month is historical romance month, and both of us found ourselves with an embarrassment of riches from which to choose. While we both ended up with European historicals, Lynn picked an oldie-but-goodie from the 1990s while Caz went with an entry from a beloved series of more recent vintage. […]
I came to tea early on in life after watching everyone around me drinking it for every occasion. Rise and shine: tea. Up too late in the night: tea. […]
A few weeks ago, I selected a book to review that admitted it was a novella, but pretended it was a stand-alone. When I opened it up, the book was fifty seven pages and was about the farthest thing from a stand-alone I could think of. Instead, I think it’s a few chapters the author cut from another book and just… embellished. There was no time to invest in the characters, and instead I was expected to believe they were obsessed enough with each other to go from dreaming of having sex with one another to marriage – in fifty seven pages.
My pet peeve radar went off.
I loathe this. First of all, fifty seven pages is not a novella. It isn’t even a short story. It’s a plot bunny that needs further unpacking. 13,000 words may sound like a lot, and writing that much is arduous, do not get me wrong, […]
Once upon a time there was a romance novelist who was an idiot.
That would be me.
I’m kidding – kind of. […]
Jenna’s recent Laminate Freebie List post started a fair bit of discussion on the site and behind the scenes at AAR, and we began to discuss the possibility of making some other lists, and talking about what we’d do if we did. In the end, we’ve rolled two of our most popular suggestions into one, and have nominated the female characters we’d either most like to be or most like to be friends with.
Who I’d like to be:
CJ Cregg, The West Wing. When the series started, CJ was the press secretary and was eventually promoted to Chief of Staff. Poised, sarcastic, and powerful, CJ navigates a world designed by men with aplomb. I never fully bought that she was a disaster in her private life the way Sorkin wanted me too, more like she understood there were seasons of life and this season was about public service and that […]
