Four Wedding Romances for Wedding Month

Unless you turned off all your electronic devices, you’ve heard a couple big pieces of information this June: One, something truly awful happened in the TV series Game of Thrones during an event titled “The Red Wedding”; and second, Target is now selling wedding dresses. Seriously, these are the top two subjects on Twitter, Facebook and on the street. And, according to my wedding-following divas, the bridesmaid dresses at Target are also abundant, beautiful and a great value. (To throw in my two cents: Costco does fresh flower arrangements at a very reasonable price. Will the colors for June ...

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Fresh Fiction: Books to Keep You Up All Night

One of the best remarks I receive is “thanks for the book, but it kept me up all night” since, when a book captures a reader’s attention for so long they give up sleep—then I have done my job. Especially if the reader is new to romance or has seldom ventured into reading fiction, to know that a book I recommended was that addictive just gives me chills. It’s the best compliment I receive and one I treasure.

So, being the generous soul and advocate—so I’ve been told this week—of romance reading, I thought ...

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Fresh Fiction: Books Can Take You Home

I just had a short trip back home to see old haunts, in a way re-visiting my childhood. However, I found my favorite restaurants had closed and my old family home leveled. It was devastating emotionally. But it brought to mind the comfort of what books do for me. As a reader since early childhood, I’ve managed to accumulate so many memories associated with certain books, memories and emotions that remain even if I don’t have the physical copy of the book with me. I can go back to the time when I discovered, consumed and lingered over ...

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Fresh Fiction: Remembering Our Heroes

Each generation is defined by events and wars that shape its collective memory. Next week, we remember those who died fighting for our country with the celebration of Memorial Day. It’s also a popular day for family gatherings, and reunions are a fine setting for re-tell family history—maybe tales of heroism and bravery. We all have our heroes. This week in Oklahoma we witnessed the selflessness and heroism of people tested by the forces of nature. Teachers protected their students from the destructive tornados as and save countless lives. In Dallas we had a fireman lose his life ...

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Fresh Fiction: Summer Blockbusters

I’ll admit that one thing we do is enjoy summer movies. As our family changes, we’ve gone from scary date films (my husband is a fan of Jaws and Halloween) to safe G and PG-rated films, and then back to the R-rated films for date nights. So, summer is always a bit exciting as we plan family trips to the movies. We’re lucky in our town to have access to a few new theaters that combine great watching technology with fantastic food choices; now you can get a really nice meal and wine. But my husband and ...

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Fresh Fiction: It's All In the Label

I’m naïve: It’s got to be the only explanation why I seriously believed the New Adult label was just for Young Adult or YA books that were aged a few years. You know, instead of an angst-ridden teen with no parental figures trying to make it in life, to a character in their early 20s. I really understand why a young woman wouldn’t be enamored with falling in love with fiction in the same vein as her mom or forbid, grandmother, so why not give it a different label, like, oh, I don’t know, maybe ...

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Summer Romances: A Mixture of Steamy and Sweet

Reading for most of us is a cycle; we get caught up in a genre and it’s hard to let go. We’ll search out similar stories until we hit overload, then we find a new gem usually in a different setting and glom on for a new reading ride. This week offers a glimpse into some of the possibilities for summer romance reading.

The erotic novel is still hot in the news and in reading circles but it’s becoming harder and harder to find a true gem among all the offerings. Our literary correspondent for Good Morning ...

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Visiting Fiction

Readers all know a book can take them far away from their normal lives, to places only glimpsed in stories that seem exotic to our ordinary and usually, at least to us, mundane lives. A book can take a few hours and transform them into an adventure set in a palace or space ship, perhaps sweep us back in time to a medieval castle or trap us in a world inhabited by shape-shifters. Or perhaps we’ll witness a romance for the ages. Or worse, at least for me, a series of misunderstandings which seem to take forever to be ...

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Fresh Fiction: The Gift of a Book

One thing people know about me is that I surround myself with books and have done so since childhood. I love books in all their shapes, sizes and conditions. I have a dog-chewed Julie Garwood I’ll probably never part with. The dog who chewed it is long gone and missed, but the book? It’s wrapped in plastic and stuck on a book case with my keepers. One of the hardest things I ever have to do is attempt purging. (*Shudders.*) That word is too harsh: I prefer weeding through, to save gems, and winnowing out the ones I ...

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Fresh Fiction: Discovering a New Author

One of the most exciting times for a reader is the first blush of finding a new, great author. Everything is new and entrancing: The characters leap from the page and are three dimensional. They might be people you’d want to meet in real life—or maybe not so much. If you’re reading a suspense or thriller, coming face-to-face with the villain might not be so wonderful. If you read paranormal/fantasy, would stumbling over a vampire or werewolf be an experience you’d enjoy? As a reader, you can escape to this brave new world and be ...

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Fueling a Reading Addiction with Series Pricing

Pricing tests on e-books and paperbacks, done by both publishers and self-published authors, is one of the most interesting recent developments in the book world. The most common of these tests is experimenting with series sales. Two examples are Debra Webb’s Faces of Evil suspense series and Vicki Pettersson’s Signs of the Zodiac series. Both are hot topics with book clubs and on readers’ boards. The pricing tests seem to work in bringing new life to sales as well as introducing a new base of readers to a series and author.  The Webb series was released in e-book ...

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Fresh Fiction: Grandma Plays with Dolls

On CBS Sunday Morning, the weekly news show which usually features stories on movers and shakers behind the news, Bill Geist trotted out to do his bit on the Fifty Shades of Grey “Mommy Porn” phenomenon. It wasn’t a complete disaster, but it did feature a 76-year-old grandmother, or the Queen of Porn as her daughter styled her, erotic romance writer. In less than seven years, Desiree Holt has churned out more than 35 books of erotic fiction, almost all of them for Ellora’s Cave. And she does her research by playing with Mattel dolls which she demonstrated ...

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Romance, Written by a Male

OMG, who knew a guy could write such a great romance! Oh, yes, there is Nicholas Sparks, but he’s really not romance no matter what he says. After all, fall in love with a character and he’ll kill them off with little notice and very little remorse. No, I’m not bitter: I just don’t do weepy books. I have enough drama and loss in my life already without adding it to my reading. Leigh Greenwood has also been around for years, but his romances are mostly about cowboys and, well, they’re just not my favorite ...

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SXSW: For Lovers of Film, Music and, Yes, Books!

You know when spring arrives thanks to two things: We lose an hour of sleep, which I’ll always hate, and South By Southwest occurs. But what does “South By” (or SXSW) have in common with books, or even more pertinent, with romance readers? Well, I’m here to provide my thoughts.

Romance readers are a curious bunch: We’re different from mainstream readers since we’re predominately women, and we’re also very inquisitive. Romance represents the cutting edge of fiction with stories and tales that push the boundaries of what’s real. Yes, our fiction is considered by ...

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Fresh Fiction: What I Found at the Local Bookstore

Back to the good old days—five years ago—bookstores were the happening place for readers, even romance readers. Our favorite authors were making the rounds and most large population centers would boast of at least one best-selling list author to show up for a signing. The romance section of the bookstore consisted of a section with many, many bays dedicated to all types of romance novels of every size imaginable: hardcover to trade to mass market, where the bounty usually awaited the enthusiastic reader.

So what’s happened?

Fast forward to current time, 2013. Box stores are closing, or ...

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Fresh Fiction: Why I Love E-books

I love e-books not for reasons of convenience or storage. I find those arguments ridiculous. I’ve always found a place for my books. Maybe not where normal people store them, but there is always a spot under a table, beneath a bed, in a spare closet or cupboard. I was always very fond of our house with that huge hanging closet over the toilet. After the first shelf was used for spare rolls of toilet paper, I found it a great spot for books. I mean, don’t we all have a little bathroom reading?  So why not store ...

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Fresh Fiction: Overlooked Authors and Books

One of the questions I’m asked several times a month is, “Who’s a new author I’ve missed?” Or, “What’s everyone reading?” Those questions go hand-in-hand and this past weekend I was asked by two specific organizations to give them suggestions: one to use in a panel and one in a post. So, I thought this week I’d share with you what our Fresh Fiction reviewers are very eager to get their hands and eyes on! You would be surprised, as I was, to find they are not necessarily from the BIG name author who has ...

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The Vampire: A Perfect Romantic Hero

What makes a vampire appealing to so many different romance readers? I mean, seriously, the basic characteristics of a vampire are: He’s dead and he drinks blood to exist. To get the blood, he’ll kill or just suck a living soul almost dead because everyone knows once you get going on a pleasure you want to take it to the extreme. So, what is it that makes the vampire so, well, darn romantic? I usually manage to avoid this kind of conversation, but at last week’s Adventures in Fiction our table conducted a lively discussion on why ...

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Fresh Fiction: War...Changes Our Romances

I had an interesting and very thought-provoking book club this week—after the tragic sniper shooting in Texas of best-selling writer Chris Kyle, the conversation turned to the heroines in our books. The realization as a nation that we’ve spent over 10 years at war is unsettling. Most of us know at least one family who has been directly affected by one of the wars, and it became apparent that even our reading has changed. Perhaps subtly, but if you look back 10 years you can see patterns. First, our heroines’ occupations are no longer the secretary or assistant ...

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Fresh Fiction: Reader's Remorse

As an active and voracious reader, one of the very little delights I have is the anticipation of a new book by a favorite author. Waiting impatiently for the release is a harrowing ordeal; I must avoid previews at all costs because as a reader I fall into the category of “finish the book in one sitting.” So reading a preview doesn’t just whet my appetite—it makes me mad. And I don’t want to get too mad, because then I start to imagine what the book is really going to be like, including the plot and the ...

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