Real love
by Jim In one of those ideas so simple that you can’t figure out why no one else thought of it sooner, publisher HCI is launching a real life romance series. Actual love stories will be turned into...
View ArticleWhy I signed up….
by Jim Story time! In January 2008, I received a query for a historical romance novel from an author who was friends with one of my clients and critique partners with another client of the agency. I do...
View ArticleRomance versus love story
by Jessica Apropos of Stacey’s post about genre, a recent interview in USA Today with New York Times best-selling author Nicholas Sparks (The Notebook, A Walk To Remember, Nights in Rodanthe, etc.)...
View ArticleIncoming Amish
by Jim This blog post from Entertainment Weekly is just the latest in a series of articles about Amish romance novels that are breaking out all over the place. I can see why the chaste world of the...
View ArticleRomance is not a dirty word
by Lauren Oh, Danielle Steel! First Nicholas Sparks, now you. How can we help you make peace with romance novels? It may be true that your novels are not romance, narrowly defined by some conventions...
View ArticleA Very Dystel Valentine
I feel like my blog posts have been coming at you straight from dullsville for the past few weeks, and I need to spice things up a bit! So: romance! In honor of Valentine’s Day, the holiday invented by...
View ArticleWorking for Love
I stumbled upon what clearly seems to be the most awesome book ever: Sai Gaddam and Ogi Ogas’s A BILLION WICKED THOUGHTS, in which the two neuroscientists studied thousands of Harlequin romance novels...
View ArticleNaughty books
A few weeks ago, someone who saw me reading on my Kindle while my son had his karate class asked me if I’d heard of a book called Fifty Shades of Grey. As I usually am when anyone asks me if I’ve...
View ArticleEmbracing Valentine’s Day for all its corniness
I’ve always liked Valentine’s Day. I liked it in first grade when we spent the day making cards from construction paper for our parents, I liked it throughout elementary school when the holiday meant...
View ArticleBooks and Love
The Bookends section of the NYTBR features an entertaining discussion of whether book-based disagreements have the power to end a romantic relationship. Since I’m a reader married to another reader,...
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Unexpected Authors
I am a longtime devotee of the Bachelor/Bachelorette dating shows, and mostly unashamed to admit it. A lot of the appeal for me is the shows’ host, Chris Harrison: though his job is to keep a straight...
View ArticleLessons from the romance industry
A few weeks ago, the wonderful people at Long Island Romance Writers asked me to speak at their annual luncheon. What follows is the speech I gave at that event: In the summer of 1999, I had completed...
View ArticleIs This Trip Necessary?
Two weeks ago, I wrote a post expressing my enthusiasm for Julian Fellowes’s decision to launch his upcoming novel BELGRAVIA as an electronically-enhanced weekly web serial that will include links to...
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To know them is to love them
As a middle schooler and beyond, I had some very serious crushes on fictional characters. Considering that I spent the majority of my free time wrapped up in a fictional world, this probably comes as...
View ArticleThe Appeal of Bad Boys
I’ve always been fascinated with the appeal of the bad boy. When thinking about my favorite male characters in novels, I’m always drawn to the slightly evil. Though, I don’t necessarily think I’m...
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