Blog Archive

To Be Royal: A guest post by Toni Shiloh

There’s something about a royalty romance that resonates in the hearts of readers. Is it our secret desire to find out we belong to royalty? Is it the fairy-tale aspect of the read that offers an…

If you could go back in time for one day, what would it be? Why?

It will not surprise you that I love reading book reviews, perhaps as much as I love reading books themselves. Every Sunday, I work my way through the New York Times’ Review of Books, taking note…

the ask@AAR: Saying goodbye to the Queen

Yesterday, at age 96, 70 years of which she ruled as the Queen of England, Queen Elizabeth II died. She had an extraordinary life–The Telegraph once wrote that by her 90th birthday she had covered at…

Mr. Malcolm’s List and color-blind casting

Over the weekend, my mom, Dr. Feelgood, and I watched Mr. Malcolm’s List. The film, based on a novel and then a short film by Suzanne Allain, tells the tale of the machinations of a proud…

Happy Labor Day!

Here in the US, today is Labor Day, a federal holiday which means most people have it off. It’s a holiday famous for parades, picnics, and parties and though it was designated to celebrate organized labor,…

the ask@AAR: What makes an erotic love story work?

Every few years, I reread Anne Calhoun’s Uncommon Passion. I read it for the hero’s powerful redemptive arc, for the way Calhoun shows us her characters’ interior lives–she is a master of the show don’t tell–and…

Looking for a cool podcast?

FMK Lit is a podcast where hosts Neil and Claire read two romance novels, a straight one and a queer one, and then play fuck marry kill with the characters. It is a podcast built to…

Setting Smackdown: France Vs. Italy!

Welcome back to Setting Smackdown, where two different romance settings brawl it out for first place in our hearts! (If you missed our first Smackdown, Georgian vs. Victorian, you can find it HERE!). This edition of…

the ask@AAR: What do we think about Anne Stuart?

We’ve reviewed Anne Stuart 36 times. She began writing in 1977–I believe her first published book was Barrett’s Hill. We didn’t review her until 1996 when we gave Prince of Swords a C-. Laurie Gold wrote: ….made…