What holidays do you love to celebrate? And happy 4th of July!

I read an interesting–and to me, depressing–article in the New York Times yesterday about how the American flag itself is now considered by many a partisan symbol. The same is true for the 4th of July, one of this country’s most beloved holidays. Where I live, there is intense disagreement over how to celebrate the founding of our nation, at least on the part of policy makers.

I’ve always loved the 4th although now that my kids are grown I no longer make this cake. […]

By Dabney Grinnan|2021-07-04T13:09:05-04:00July 4th, 2021|Categories: Dabney AAR, Real Life|Tags: 4th of July|10 Comments

Desperately seeking… foreskins!

There’s been a lot on my mind this year, but at the top of it is this: foreskin.

I enjoy reading about sex both in romance novels and in non-fiction. The other day I was flipping through a tome entitled The Guide to Getting It On that devoted an entire chapter to the foreskin—discussing what it is, how men and their partners feel about it, and how they make it a pleasurable part of their sensual/sexual lives. It then occurred to me that not only have I never encountered a chapter in a romance novel about the foreskin and sex, but I’ve never seen the word ‘foreskin’ printed on a single page in one! […]

By Charlotte Elliott|2020-09-26T09:09:45-04:00September 27th, 2020|Categories: Heroes, Real Life|Tags: circumcision, foreskin, penises|96 Comments

What’s Your 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. […]

By Blythe Smith|2020-09-12T20:58:25-04:00September 13th, 2020|Categories: AAR Blythe, Reading, Real Life|Tags: reading journey|59 Comments

We’re all in this together–and we’ve got a page to prove it!

Update: Just checking in to see how everyone is doing. Most of us are now living under shelter in place orders for at least the next month. For me, that’s meant a lot of one of one time with my spouse, more walks with my dog, and more cooking. How about you? […]

By Dabney Grinnan|2020-03-30T10:29:46-04:00March 31st, 2020|Categories: Dabney AAR, Real Life|Tags: community, coronavirus, Romance, support, virtual hugs|20 Comments

This post is now closed. Keira will be contacting those of you who have said they’d like to participate. Thanks!

Through more than twenty years of All About Romance’s reviews, AAR’s readers have visited, read our posts, and commented on the reviews, blogs, and message boards. And over the years, as AAR staff, we have gotten to know some of you. However, we would love to get to know all of you better. […]

By Keira Soleore|2019-09-01T12:45:43-04:00August 30th, 2019|Categories: Community, Defining Romance, Interviews, Reading, Real Life, Romance, Romance reading, Romancelandia|125 Comments

Romance Rx To the Rescue!

My mum, Nancy Jane Wullschleger Thurston, died on March 19^th, 2019, just after I came home from visiting her in Sudbury, Ontario. She slipped peacefully away during an afternoon nap, in her own home, surrounded by books, puzzles of all kinds, with birds to entertain her outside her window. […]

By |2019-05-13T12:19:47-04:00May 12th, 2019|Categories: Historicals, Reading, Real Life, Romance reading|11 Comments

Fond First Times… Our first experiences with romance novels, part two

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. […]

By Caz Owens|2018-05-26T22:08:09-04:00May 26th, 2018|Categories: Alexandra AAR, Anne Marble, BJ Jansen, Caz AAR, Haley AAR, Keira Soleore, Reading, Real Life, Romance, Romance reading|4 Comments

The King of Halloween and Miss Firecracker Queen by Lori Leachman

It is amazing how revealing and enlightening funeral celebrations can be. Long-held secrets may finally be shared. The truth of a particular situation is told. Long-simmering resentments are aired, or forgotten. Memories are resurrected. The nature of love is revealed.

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 […]

By Dabney Grinnan|2018-04-05T07:47:10-04:00April 5th, 2018|Categories: Guest Posts, Real Life|Tags: football, NFL, sports|0 Comments

Our Bodies, Our Stories: the AAR staff talks about weight

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 […]

By Dabney Grinnan|2018-02-02T11:37:14-05:00February 1st, 2018|Categories: Real Life|Tags: Anorexia, Body Image, Obesity, Self-Acceptance, Weight|21 Comments

Not Quite Woke

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 […]

By Jenna Harper|2017-12-11T08:00:00-05:00December 11th, 2017|Categories: AAR Jenna, Real Life|61 Comments