AAR Blythe Archives : All About Romance

What’s Your Reading Journey?

By Blythe Smith|2020-09-12T20:58:25-04:00September 13th, 2020|Categories: AAR Blythe, Reading, Real Life|Tags: reading journey|

If you’re an AAR old timer (I’ll let you define what that means), you may be wondering if I fell off the face of the earth. Short answer: Yes, yes I did. Short version for those who don’t avidly follow my life: I was a managing editor and then publisher of AAR for years (1998-2016-ish). In 2014 my marriage of 25 years ended, in 2015 I met the love of my life, in 2018 he died. Now it’s 2020, and even with a world that has had no bottom since 2018, I am still on the planet. The seismic shifts in my world have drastically affected my reading, though. […]

An almost DIKlassic review: By Possession by Madeline Hunter

By Dabney Grinnan|2020-05-02T13:41:26-04:00May 2nd, 2020|Categories: AAR Blythe, DIKlassic|Tags: Crusades, Madeline Hunter, Medieval Romance|

Several of you have asked we bring back our DIKlassic reviews. Great idea! I am currently reading Hunter’s By Possession and it is SO. GOOD. (This review first ran in August of 2000.) I’m a bit astonished Blythe only gave it a B+–although I haven’t finished the novel yet and the pacing may, by its end, cause me to think the book isn’t quite a DIK. So, even though this wasn’t a DIK for Blythe, it, thus far, is for me. […]

Storytime by Blythe Smith

By Blythe Smith|2018-10-14T15:13:53-04:00October 14th, 2018|Categories: AAR Blythe|Tags: GoFundMe|

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. […]

Falling in love in the used bookstore

By Blythe Smith|2017-06-23T08:30:13-04:00January 30th, 2016|Categories: AAR Blythe, Bookstores, Reading|Tags: The Captain’s Lady Cookbook - Personal Journal|

Whats Next Packet 2016 When I was visiting my daughter in North Carolina, I fell in love with a book. My girls were both next door in a comic book store, so I was left to my own devices in a used bookstore, something that used to happen to me all the time but now rarely does.

At this point I am going to both digress and date myself (again), but I remember that heady days over twenty years ago when I had just discovered romance.The internet was still a baby, and few people used it to buy books. Virtually no one was reading digitally yet. I would go to the used bookstore with a big list in hand and come out with a bunch of romances. The whole genre was new and I’d hardly read anything yet, so I was like a kid in the candy store. Better yet, I always had […]

RWA – Thursday

By Blythe Smith|2017-06-23T08:30:19-04:00July 24th, 2015|Categories: AAR Blythe, All About Romance, Book news, Publishing, RWA|

The first full day of RWA is in the books. Lynn, Dabney, and I have been busy observing, reporting, tweeting, and okay…celebrating.

One change this year is that there are no luncheons; the sessions with featured speakers are breakfast sessions in the morning. Undoubtedly a cost-cutting measure, and I am not sure whether it is a permanent shift or if they are just trying it out. All of us missed it Thursday because we were invited to breakfast the the Simon & Schuster Offices – for booklovers, that was pretty cool and a major perk of having the conference in New York. Incidentally, there do seem to be a lot more men milling about at this conference than the one in say, San Antonio. Don’t get me wrong; this is a very female dominated industry and there are far more women than men – just more men than usual. We […]

RWA (and AAR) is in the Big Apple!

By Dabney Grinnan|2017-05-24T17:09:24-04:00July 20th, 2015|Categories: AAR Blythe, Dabney AAR, Lynn AAR, Publishing, RWA|

One of the most fun parts of Romancelandia is the annual Romance Writers of America conference held each year in July. Last year it was in sweltering San Antonio and this year, still sweltering, its attendees are in New York City.

I arrived here on Sunday afternoon and spent the afternoon walking and sweating profusely. My phone claimed it was a measly 96 degrees–I’m sure with the heat of the traffic and the asphalt, it was well over 100. But who cares? This is New York, a city where you can find just about every kind of activity you can imagine.

I’m here a bit early because my eldest son lives here now and this is the first chance I’ve had to visit him here. (First mom job: Buy him a second set of sheets and a few more towels–he has just one of each.)

Blythe and Lynn arrive on Tuesday and then it’s a whirlwind of panels, interviews, dinners, parties, and awards. Yes, […]

Romance in Real Life: Personality and Love

By Blythe Smith|2017-06-23T08:30:19-04:00June 22nd, 2015|Categories: AAR Blythe, Book news, Relationships|

So I’m still not reading much (though I did manage a re-read of my favorite romance novel of all time, Mary Balogh’s Slightly Dangerous). I have, though, been paying a lot of attention to real life romance because that’s where I am at right now.

Believe it or not, I spend a decent amount of time bonding with my ex over how much better we work together as friends and how much happier we are with other people. And this despite the fact that he’s back to dealing with young children again (our youngest child is fifteen) and I am dealing with a significant other who is often away. Both of us have done a lot of thinking and analyzing of why we didn’t work as well together as we wanted to. Part of it, definitely, is that we married so young. I’m not sure anyone knows exactly what […]

The Mother of All Reading Slumps

By Blythe Smith|2017-06-23T08:30:20-04:00April 27th, 2015|Categories: AAR Blythe, Book news|Tags: reading slump|

blythe I’ve heard of reading slumps before. I mean, I’ve been at this for awhile now. Others have written about them at length, both on our news blog and at LLB’s old At the Back Fence column. But until now, I’ve never had one. Really. I’ve gone stretches where I struggled to find time to read, but that isn’t really the same thing as not wanting to. And right now, I don’t want to.

This is absolutely unheard of in my life. The only thing that even comes close would be my college years, when I was so busy reading history that I had very little time to read for pleasure. Even then, I read like a fiend during my breaks. This? Well, it’s different. I haven’t finished a book since November. I haven’t started a book since then either. I’m not sure how to change that or when it will change.

Why, you […]

Fifty Shades the Movie: Blythe’s Take

By Blythe Smith|2017-06-23T08:30:21-04:00February 17th, 2015|Categories: AAR Blythe, Movies|

Okay, everyone and their dog has weighed in on this one, whether it’s because they saw it, didn’t see it and didn’t think anyone should see it either, or are waiting until it comes out on DVD so they can save their hard earned money. I for one, was looking forward to this for weeks. Maybe months. I knew precisely how I wanted to see it: In a theater full of women, with my girlfriends. A theater where you could drink. That’s precisely what I did, and it was awesome.

Most of us have have HDTV and we’re all busy with work, school, kids, and life. I genuinely like going to the movies for its own sake and always have. However, I go much less frequently than I used to. But with something like Fifty Shades, there are compelling reasons to experience a movie socially. There are ways it can add […]

Writing a New Love Story

By Blythe Smith|2017-06-23T08:30:24-04:00November 21st, 2014|Categories: AAR Blythe, Relationships, Romance, Romance reading|

How good are you at reading in between the lines? If you’re better than me, maybe you saw my impending divorce coming before I did. When I blog, I tend to take inspiration from what’s going on in my own reading and in my life. A few months ago I wrote about the romances that mirror your own romance, and in a roundabout way discussed my newfound disenchantment with heroines who marry too young. […]