“Dress for Success” can mean all kinds of things. In Lynn’s case, she went for fashion designer lead characters. Or, one can do as Caz did, and pull out a Pygmalion-esque story. And then there are masquerade balls, heroes and heroines in disguise…all kinds of possibilities. What would be your favorite “dress for success” book?
Since “Backlist” is pretty much what the TBR Challenge is all about, this month felt completely wide open for both of us. In the end, while we chose different subgenres, we both went with similar strategies. We each picked a backlist book by an autobuy author and as it turns out, we had somewhat similar results in terms of grading. So, who’s on your backlist? […]
This month’s TBR Challenge post is smaller than usual, as Lynn wasn’t able to make it this time around, so Caz is flying solo this month. The “Family Ties” prompt offered plenty of scope; families often feature strongly in romance novels, whether it’s a couple making a family, family members featuring in a series or, as in the book Caz chose, a group of un-related people becoming a family unit.
Imagine by Jill Barnett
Many romance series feature siblings, but for the Family Ties prompt, I decided to go for a ‘found family’ story, and Jill Barnett’s Imagine (originally published in 1995 and reissued in 2017) fit that bill perfectly.
It’s 1896, and in San Francisco, successful, hard-working attorney Margaret Huntington Smith has been urged by her father, a judge, to take a well-deserved vacation. Knowing she […]
For many readers, when you utter the phrase “old school,” they tend to think of big sweeping historicals. The hated phrase “bodice ripper” often comes up as do the clinch covers of old. And that’s certainly one way of doing old school romance. Maybe it’s pandemic fatigue, but neither one of us was really up to that thread of old school romance. Instead we revisited the world 
of Regency trads by well-loved authors, where Caz found more success than Lynn this month. […]
This month’s TBR Challenge prompt pretty much left the reading choices wide open. After all, with the word “freebie,” one can come up with all kinds of things. Gift books, Kindle deals, books about free stuff, who knows? In the end, the common thread between our picks seemed to be high action. Caz went with a m/m romantic suspense novella, while Lynn chose an equally action-packed paranormal. […]
“Seasons” is one of those TBR challenge prompts that can take a reader almost anywhere. Caz and I went in similar directions, combing our respective TBR stacks for books with seasons in their titles. I ended up with a hot summer romance, while Caz opted for an autumn-themed Regency trad. […]
This month’s TBR Challenge theme is simply “friends,” which is open-ended enough to take in various directions. One could read a friends-to-lovers book or, as Lynn did, read a book where the friends of a lead character play an important role in his/her life. 
Caz and Lynn took this challenge in slightly different directions, but both found winners this month. […]
2019 was a strange reading year for me. On the one hand, I did read a lot of books I enjoyed. However, they tended to be of the backlist variety. Something about packing two new babies and two job changes into four years took something out of me. […]
A new year is beginning and that brings a new TBR Challenge. As has been true for the last several years, the challenge is being hosted by Wendy the Super Librarian, and this month we’re tasked with reading something short – novellas, short stories, category romance, you name it. […]
Many of our readers have probably been following recent events in RWA. In the wake of these developments at the national level, RWA local and online chapters have started to weigh in with statements both official and unofficial. I have reviewed each of the chapter websites I could find, and below I have compiled as many statements as I could locate. […]