Here at Cooking Up Romance, I post a romance novel review with a matching recipe on Mondays and then Thursdays usually mean a brief essay on some topic tangential to my interest in romance like how to find great writers on Twitter and why romance gets so little literary credit. This week though, my brush
As I mentioned last week, I’ve found some wonderful new-to-me writers via Twitter. Among these is Lisa Hendrix, writer of the Immortal Brotherhood series. The series is an interesting conflation of history, fantasy and romance, which are pretty much my three favorite things. Labeling these paranormal romances really doesn’t do them justice, but if paranormal they must
Today I want to talk about Twitter. A few months ago, I had maybe four romance novels on my “to read” list. I pretty much limited myself to my very favorite authors, reading all of their books until I ran out and then scrambling to find a new author’s backlist to pillage. Romance Novels for Feminists
A couple of months ago, I asked my husband if he’d be interested in reading one of my romance novels. Since he’s usually game for pretty much anything and already a genre fiction reader, he agreed. Admittedly, I didn’t expect much. I figured he might read one, get the general gist and then leave me
Recently there has been (another) spate of denigration of romance novels by the male commentariat. Honestly, I don’t click on their links or engage in argument with them. They are trolls and thou shalt not feed them. But I am aware of the articles and the ridiculous claims contained therein because I think if you’re
When Ava Lovelace’s geeky erotica novella The Lumberfox opens, it’s winter in Atlanta and it’s snowing. Hard. And if you’ve ever been anywhere near the South when it decides to snow hard, you pretty much know that we’re, well, ill-equipped to deal. So it’s no surprise when heroine Tara and hero Ryon get into a
Thief of Shadows by Elizabeth Hoyt is one of my favorite romance novels ever. It ranks with Prince of Midnight in terms of sheer numbers of rereads and in a superficial way, it’s a similar book. Our hero Winter Makepeace is also known as The Ghost of St. Giles, a Spiderman-like character who defends
Delphine Dryden is a writer I probably should have discovered a long time ago, but somehow didn’t. I mean, she writes for Wonkomance, she’s in frequent conversation with a lot of my other favorite writers on Twitter (like Cara McKenna, Ruthie Knox and Charlotte Stein) and, well, she’s a nerd. How could it have
Let’s talk about sex. Specifically, sex in romance novels. Can someone tell me what’s up with virgin heroines’ first times being, well, awesome? And not painful at all? I get a little annoyed by historicals where the heroine feels “a little pinch” and then goes on to have an awesome time. Is this realistic for
I’m a late Laura Kinsale convert. Her first book was published when I was still a kid, but in my early absorption with Julie Garwood and a whole host of Harlequin titles (which could be had for 25 cents each from my local used bookstore), I never ran across her work. It wasn’t until
