the ask@AAR: Is there still a canon for romance? What books should or shouldn’t be on it?

January 20, 2023

Almost exactly a year ago, I asked whether or not AAR should, as it typically does every five years, do a new Top 100 poll. As is the case with…

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the ask@AAR: Will ChatGPT ruin the writing? The world?

January 13, 2023

It’s fair to say I’m obsessed with ChatGPT. What’s that, you ask? Hmmm… let me try and explain. ChatGPT is an artificial intelligence bot that answers questions in fairly fluent…

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Talking with Jane Porter

January 8, 2023

Jane Porter is one of the few romance writers writing love stories that, among other things, feature Baby Boomers. Her latest book, Flirting with the Beast, features a smart, sexy…

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the ask@AAR: What were the trends in romance in 2022?

January 6, 2023

Now that 2022, is in the books, what did you notice about it in romance? From my perspective, there definitely were some trends. Here, in no particular order, are some…

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the ask@AAR: a 2022 retrospective

December 30, 2022

In 2022–including this one!–AAR has published 52 the ask@AAR columns. Many of these generated lots of comments. Readers had the most to say about their pet peeves in romance, trigger…

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the ask@AAR: What books, shows, movies, or other things are you looking forward to in 2023?

December 23, 2022

Another year has flown by and–I can barely believe this–2023 is almost upon us. I’m super pumped for this coming year–my husband is going to retire and I can’t wait….

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the ask@AAR: Do you like holiday romances?

December 16, 2022

Currently we have over two hundred reviews tagged as holiday romances. One, One Christmas Knight by Kathleen Creighton garnered one of our rare (55) A+reviews. There’s also an snarky F–our…

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the ask@AAR: What was the best thing that happened this year?

December 9, 2022

‘Tis the season to be jolly, right? 2022 was a reasonable year. It wasn’t the sh*tshow that 2020 was or filled with 2020 PTSD like 2021. Billions of vaccines were…

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the ask@AAR: What’s your FINAL pick for best romance of 2022?

December 2, 2022

Hi there AAR readers! Happy December! The staff has begun submitting their Best of 2022 Lists. (I adore these–every year I discover great reads I missed!) I confess I’m having…

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the ask@AAR: What do we think about trigger warnings in reviews?

November 25, 2022

It’s the Friday after Thanksgiving here in the US, a holiday famed for its abundant food, contested history, and familial arguments. I confess my family doesn’t fight at Thanksgiving–we leave…

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the ask@AAR: How do you like your love stories?

November 18, 2022

I was struck by a sentence written by romance novelist Adriana Herrera in the Washington Post this week. Herrera, in an article entitled The 10 Best Romance Novels of 2022,…

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the ask@AAR: What is a feminist romance?

November 11, 2022

Each day my inbox is full of emails about upcoming books romance readers might like to read. And, if publishers are right about romance readers–and who is to say they…

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