It’s been almost two years since we published our last Top 100 Romances list. This list, which AAR has done every five years or so, is a reader generated list–the last list was picked by readers who cast over 5000 votes. We left the Top 100 list unranked although we did rank the top ten. I’m curious what you think now, in 2020, about the top ten and the top 100 lists. […]
Since the invention of the kiss, there have been five kisses rated the most passionate, the most pure. This one left them all behind. (from The Princess Bride) […]
I hate the term “guilty pleasure.” (“A guilty pleasure is something that we enjoy, but we know we’re either not supposed to like, or that liking it says something negative about us,” said Sami Schalk, an assistant professor of gender and women’s studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.) I believe that joy is joy and as long as what you love doesn’t actually hurt others, you go. But, in the absence of another term, I’m using it albeit resentfully.
Today, when a friend on Facebook pointed out that you can’t have a pandemic without panic, I was practicing deep breathing. (I’d just read the New York Times.) I had, like so many, been freaking out. But then I started to read about the 1918 flu and how much better off we are facing this virus in no small part to all the advances we’ve made in medicine and in research. […]
Between the coronavirus, the election, the stock market, and putting our house on the market (last kids moved out and we are downsizing big time), I am frazzled. I take more baths, listen to music that brings me joy, and refuse to watch anything depressing. And, of course, I read books that soothe my soul. […]
We’ve talked here before about no-go stories in romance–narratives that readers just aren’t having. Many readers can’t abhor infidelity, others can’t stand violent heroes/heroines, etc…
Today I’m curious what stories would you like to see more of in romance? […]
On some rare occasions, if you’re favored, you read a passage or a scene in a novel so grandly romantic, you’re gobsmacked. You swoon, your heart feels tender and ardent. Whatever is said or happens in the scene, it’s what you’ve dreamed of receiving (and, if you’re extraordinarily lucky, have.) […]
Later this month, a friend of mine’s book club which typically only reads very serious books for adults is going to read a romance. They read about the RWA fiasco and have seen the increased coverage of romance in the big name press and so they decide to give one a try. For most, it will be the first romance they’ve read as an adult. […]
Lately, I’ve been craving a book that will break my heart… and then put it back together again. It’s been so long since I read a romance that made me ugly cry that, honestly, I can’t think of any off the top of my head. Kristan Higgins’ women’s fiction has made me cry–I just reread If You Only Knew and, while doing so, used up a clutch of Kleenex. Circe made me cry but, again, not a traditional romance. The Time Traveler’s Wife destroyed me but, while it is a phenomenal love story, it is most certainly not a romance. […]
A recent article in the Washington Post was titled Reading will supposedly make you a better person. That’s not the real reason to pick up a book. In it, the author wrote: […]