In part two of our reminiscences about our first experiences with romance novels, AAR staffers are here to share more of our stories about our first romances, when we read them, who we read them with and what, ultimately, made us fall in love with the genre. […]
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 […]
The discussion about Kristan Higgins’ Good Luck with That got AAR staffers talking about their own experiences with weight and body image. We, all women, range in age from our 20s to our 60s, live all over the world, and live very different lives. We’d like to share our stories with you—somehow, hearing all these voices, made all of us feel better about ourselves and we hope they’ll do the same for you. Many of preferred to write anonymously and, after thinking about it, we decided to all do so—each name here is a pseudonym.
Emma: I’m what many people consider “overweight.” Maybe even “obese.” Possibly “morbidly obese.” I’m the person you inwardly groan about when you realize my seat is next to yours on an airplane. I’m the one you roll your eyes at when you see me eating anything other than a salad. I’m the one you offer […]
Society is becoming woke to the decades, centuries – millennia – that women have endured as silent victims of a predatory culture. This is a good thing.
But such birth does not come without pain and blood. As the pendulum swings in a corrective direction, the risk that it will swing too far is real. Indeed, some have questioned if it is not already too late.
What is the danger of extremism in our reactions?
Innocent men who find their reputations destroyed, their careers damaged or erased, their lives upended beyond repair based on the word of another given absolute, priority value. Accusations equal to physical evidence or objective corroboration. Guilt presumed over innocence. An abandonment of any sense of due process. The failure to allow the accused to face his accuser.
A witch-hunt mentality that heightens skepticism regarding any and all claims of abuse. The potential of coming full circle as suspicion of motives […]
I was shocked last week to find out historical romance author Miranda Neville had passed away. I knew she had been sick because she’d been away from Twitter for a while and when she returned we discussed it briefly. But she re-engaged with Romancelandia on Twitter, and I assumed her health crisis was over. So her loss to our book world brought on a welter of sorrow.
I first met Miranda at the Romance Writers’ of America conference in 2010 just after her second book The Wild Marquis was released. We met at the bar – where else does one go to meet interesting people at the professional conference for romance writers? We hit it off right away and shared many laughs over the course of those drinks. Much to my disappointment, I never met her in person after that.
However, we stayed in regular touch over Twitter, and […]
I admit that I love to read romance novels for pretty much one reason – the swoon-worthy heroes. Be they Navy SEALs, roguish pirates, Scottish warriors or powerful tycoons, their confidence and swagger and charm all draw me in and allow me to escape to a fantasy world where the good guy will always save the day.
Given all of the recent turmoil in our world, what with hurricanes and political tempests galore, it’s tempting to escape into those fantasies as much as possible. But every once in a while, I’m reminded that real heroes walk among us. These are the guys and gals who put their lives on the line every day to help a stranger. They go in when others are rushing out. They serve as real-life examples to our sons and daughters of the best that humanity has to offer.
Below are photos of these super folks in action. We tip our hats and thank them profusely for […]
The cold shower is the romance novel male equivalent of the internal hymen: you see it in books so frequently that you probably don’t notice it anymore, but when you stop to think about it, something’s off. In fact, everything is off. The cold shower, it seems, is just as grounded in reality as the mythical internal hymen.
What is the cold shower? Here are just a few of the many, many examples:
After ogling the heroine Jennifer, the hero Cletus reflects:
A cold shower was in order. And yoga. And then another cold shower. – Beard Science by Penny Reid
After ogling the heroine Lucy, the hero Zack reflects:
He needed a shower. A cold one. – Getting Rid of Bradley by Jennifer Crusie
After ogling the heroine Emma, the hero Connor reflects that if he couldn’t
take a cold shower, he’d have to settle for cold drinks. And maybe he should just pour […]
I’ve so loved reading all of the Winter Warmer recipes shared by everyone at AAR. I plan to try out a number of them over the next few months (first up, Melanie’s potato soup). But I find I’m now in the need of a very different type of winter warmer.
A little over a week ago my apartment complex came through and installed a lot of energy saving devices in all of the apartments. As someone who tries to be energy efficient, I was very enthusiastic. I came home one evening to discover a new “low flow” shower head, new pipes (wrapped with some kind of insulated stuff) under the cabinets, energy-efficient light bulbs, and a programmable thermostat. Having only dealt with an old dial thermostat before, this programmable thermostat was a revelation. It came pre-programmed for optimal energy savings, set for cooler when people are assumed to be at work or sleeping.
The following poem captures beautifully the meaning of the coming holiday. The sentiment is such that it should be remembered all year long.
My having an October birthday has meant many, many Halloween themed parties over the years. Then my youngest daughter came into the world on October 30 and we had two in the family born close to that veil between the living world and the dead. I was actually finishing costumes for my two oldest children when I went into labor. When each of my children were old enough, I made costumes and drove my kids to other neighborhoods or attended church events on Halloween. Unfortunately, the neighborhood we lived in for nearly twenty years was not conducive to trick-or-treaters and in all of those years we had exactly three trick-or-treaters…TOTAL. […]
