A New Year Deserves a New Book …
Some people find a New Year and the resolutions that can come with it a burden, but not me. I love a fresh start. In fact, I welcome any fresh start that I can get: the new pristine page in a daily desktop calendar, the arrival of a new month, even the change of season…. Read More
To Choose or Not Choose a Book for the Season …
Any author can attest to the mystery of what they write and when—a little mix of muse, book contract stipulations, market trends, and desire, I presume. But what about how readers choose which of those books to read? Most days of the year, I choose what I read by impulse or nudge. A new book… Read More
The Season Wouldn’t be the Season Without Stories
We all celebrate Christmas or Hanukkah or Kwanza, but we don’t necessarily celebrate them alike. Our family being Irish Catholic celebrates Christmas, but being a reader, I have my own little traditions that I cherish as well as midnight Mass or putting out the nativity figures in the old family crèche. To me, like so… Read More
What Can a Present Tell You About Your Partner?
It doesn’t matter if you’re a schoolgirl with her first boyfriend or an adult married many, many years with a house of kids: We all read a lot into what our significant other does or does not slip under the Christmas tree, especially when it comes to the gift with our name on it. Many… Read More
It’s Beginning to Read a Lot Like Christmas
It’s the first week of December, and so it should come as no surprise, dear reader, that holiday-inspired tales dominate the new title offerings this month. Whether it is Laura Marie Altom’s The Cowboy SEAL’s Jingle Bell Baby, Book 4 in her Cowboy SEALS Series, now out in mass-market paperback and eBook (the hardcover follows… Read More
Once Upon a Thanksgiving
Thanksgiving has always been my father’s favorite holiday as much for what it isn’t as for what it is. He loves that there are no gifts, no Madison Avenue commercialization (or at least less than for most American holidays), no Mom running up the credit card balances. He believes Thanksgiving comprises all that any holiday… Read More
Make Mine a Musician, Please
For years the conventional wisdom when it came to romance novels was the author might put a musician in a book, but if she did you’d be safe betting the musician — drummer, lead singer, guitarist — would not get the girl. Yet coming off the deaths of the sultry voiced Leonard Cohen and the… Read More
Lords, Ladies and Lost Girls . . .
Whether your reading tastes run to Scottish lords and ladies or sexy soldiers and lost girls, November has the title you crave. From Valerie Bowman comes The Legendary Lord, Book 6 in her Playful Brides Series. Christian Forester has fled the crowded ballrooms of London for the peace and quiet of his remote Scottish… Read More
It’s Beginning to Look a Little Like the Holidays
With Halloween now over—if only for a few hours, it probably comes as no surprise that the holiday literary offerings have already begun to go under the tree. November opens with two holiday-themed reissues by #1 New York Times bestselling authors Robyn Carr (My Kind of Christmas, Book 20 Virgin River Series) and The 24… Read More
The Heroine as Hero
Once upon a time, heroes had to be perfect — beautiful men riding in on beautiful white horses to save the day. Women readers all but demanded it. And then in 1847 along came Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre. Suddenly, readers learned the beauty of a flawed man, a man who needed a good woman to… Read More
October Sees New Series Installments
Some months are all about new books or the start of a new series. Others are about continuing the pleasure of a favorite saga. October 2016 is that kind of month with sixteen new installments to some of your favorite series. Alexa Aston unveils Word of Honor, Book 3 in her Knights of Valor Series…. Read More
Autumn Ushers in New Fall Novels
Hollywood may save its blockbusters for summer moviegoers, but savvy readers know that publishers often save their best books for fall. That’s why October is the gateway month to the year’s biggest new books. And October 2016 promises to be no different. #1 New York Times Bestselling Author Robyn Carr is first out of the… Read More