In a comment she wrote on my recent review of Sarina Bowen’s Good As Gold, Caroline wrote:
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the ask@AAR: What do we think about all that butt stuff?
OK, it’s a thing. I’ve just read my third contemporary romance in a row in which fingers find their way into what is often referred to the back door. This is an equal opportunity experience–men and women are both the doers and the do-ees. This isn’t anal sex, per se, in fact I’ve not seen…
the ask@AAR: What’s your topic deal breaker?
I recently read a book in which the hero of the book had been through and thus was obsessed with school shootings. I could barely get through it. That’s a topic that I just don’t want to encounter in a romance novel.
the ask@AAR: What will romance look like this year?
One of the perks of my job is access to upcoming releases before they’re released. Every day, I look at Edelweiss and NetGalley and check out what’s coming out in the near future. This means I have a pretty good sense of what publishers and authors think will sell in 2025. And maybe they’re right….
the ask@AAR: What’s your favorite age gap love story?
We have 113 books tagged as age gap romances. 61 one of them are DIKs. They are, in general, not my jam. (That said, I adore What I Did for a Duke.) Why don’t I like them? I think it’s because I’m old. If I’d married someone 25 years older than me, he’d now be…
the ask@AAR: What was the golden era of romance?
What was the golden age of romance? For some, it’s the 1980s and 1990s—the era of Judith McNaught, Julie Garwood, and Lisa Kleypas, when paperbacks ruled the checkout aisle and nobody apologized for a happy ending. Those books were big, emotional, and often hilariously–at least in retrospect–sincere. Heroines had jobs, men had feelings, and everyone…
the ask@AAR: What are the very best love scenes in romance?
My book club–the fun one–met last night and discussed Verity. It was not much loved. Many called out, in particular, the sex scenes. The words crass, vulgar, and filler were mentioned. This group, with a few exceptions, doesn’t read romance and several people opined that sex scenes make a book worse rather than better. I…
This comment resonated with me. In writing, like most everything else, there’s a place where the rapid pace of production begins to pull down products’ quality. There are categories like, perhaps, category romances where that may not be true. And I’m sure there are prolific authors whose output remains stellar. I just can’t think of any….
What’s your take? Do you feel like there are authors out there who write several really good books a year? Are many authors publishing more books in shorter time frames than they used to? Or am I utterly off base? Let me know!