Author Archive

Guest Post

The Four Stages of Read Rage

There I was, all snuggled up on my couch with the most recent book in an unnamed series when it hit me: Read Rage.

Read rage is emotion that occurs when an author, usually a favorite author, does something so heinous, so bizarre, so unthinkable that the reader is immediately plunged into a rage. It’s a crippling condition that isn’t spoken about often in the Romance community.

As an avid reader, someone who works in medicine*, and as an occasional sufferer of read rage I believe I’m uniquely qualified to describe this phenomenon to you so that you can catch the signs of read rage and prepare yourself for the inevitable fall out.

Read rage, much like other emotions, is part of a wider spectrum. The lowest end of the spectrum is irritation. This is the type of emotion a reader might feel when confronted with poor editing, typos, or the overuse of particularly, flowery purple prose. These instances are irritating but not enough to make you want to do more than roll your eyes and repeatedly sigh loudly until your partner asks you what is wrong.

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Guest Post

Four Reasons to Give Historical Romance a Try

Historical Romance is one the most well known sub-genres of romance. Take any article you’ve ever read or show you’ve ever watched that deals with the topic and inevitably someone will mention or allude to historical romance. Although they make up only 20% of traditionally published Romance novels they have, for whatever reason, become the face of romance since their rise to popularity in the early 1970s.

Personally, I love historical romance. I love the history, the different customs, and the stories of romance that are both the same and different from what is experienced today in North American culture. So, imagine my surprise when I discovered that many of the ladies in my book club, as a rule, avoid Historical Romance.

Here are 4 reasons you should give historical romance a try.

  1. You Can Choose Your Own Adventure

When I started reading Historical Romance I started with Petals on The River by Kathleen Woodwiess. This was not a good way for me to start.

I hated Petals in the River. It was super long, it took place in Colonial America, which doesn’t turn my crank, and there was a lot of dubiously incomplete or simply nonexistent consent when it came to the heroine and her sexual encounters.

Lucky for me, historical romance isn’t a one trick pony. There are over thirteen subcategories, ranging from Viking romance, specific periods in England’s history, Pirates, Native American Romance and Civil War Romance. This meant I was able to easily find other historical romance novels that I could enjoy (and had less rape!). From Kathleen Woodiwiss I moved on to Lorraine Heath’s Texas Trilogy, Stephanie Laurens’ Cynster Series and the historical romance of Lynsay Sands and now I read all sorts of authors.

I found the romances I preferred were set in England or Scotland, usually during the Stuart era (1603 to 1714) or the Regency period (1811-1820) and preferably featuring a kilted Scotsman or a dark brooding peer of the realm.

Historical romance is so broad a category that it’s easy for anyone to find something they like.

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Guest Post

Has Erotica Become the Beige Granny Panties of Romance?

I first discovered erotica when I first discovered ebooks. I loved erotica for the same reason I love reading in general: I love the escape and the ability to live through the fictional lives of others. At that time I was a young mother with a stressful job and financial issues. Reading was great, but erotica was exciting and new and, not to mention kind of dirty and forbidden.

Then Fifty Shades of Grey happened and erotica became a bit more mainstream. It wasn’t hard to find a book with BDSM elements or with an Alpha Billionaire and a naive young protege. Taboo wasn’t taboo anymore; it was everywhere. People were actually asking me about erotica (albeit in hushed tones) at church. Erotica was easy to get and I was reading it as often as I was reading mainstream romance novels.

And then I wasn’t and I’m not.

Why? Because it all started to read the same. No longer was erotica the sexy, bright, red thong of my reading wardrobe, it became the beige granny panties. Just a boring same old-same old in which an Alpha billionaire/MC president/rockstar/DEA Agent/MMA fighter/sex club owner/shifter of some kind meets a naive ingenue/single mom/investigative journalist/uptight sex therapist/curvy entrepreneur and teaches her about the darker side/emotional healing power/feminist truth of pleasure. Over and over and over again. For me, erotica became the Groundhog Day of reading.

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