Essays & Musings
What We’ve Been Thinking About
Thoughts on books, reading, culture, and the literary life.
the ask@AAR: What’s your least favorite insult leveled at romance?
January 15, 2021Elaine S, a long time AAR reader and commenter, recently sent us an exceedingly irritating article from Britain’s the Daily Mail about the upcoming romance to be published by the…
Read Article
The Best Book of 2020? The readers decide!
January 13, 2021Over the past year, we’ve reviewed and discussed hundreds of books published this year, some of which we loved. We’ve shared with you our reviewers’ Best of 2020 lists–the AAR…
Read Article
the ask@AAR: Who would you cast in Lord of Scoundrels and other favorite romances?
January 8, 2021In our lively discussion about Bridgerton, several readers have shared how much they lust for love Regé-Jean Page, the absurdly sexy British-Zimbabwean actor who plays Simon Basset aka the Duke…
Read Article
The Best of 2020 – Dabney’s list
January 7, 2021Here, in no particular order, are the books I enjoyed the most this year. The Searcher by Tana French I’ve been stanning Tana French since reading her first book, In…
Read Article
Winsome or Loathsome: Daphne Bridgerton
January 2, 2021Given the phenomenal interest in Julia Quinn’s Bridgerton series, we thought it would be fun to republish this! originally published on March 2, 2015 Welcome to our new column, Winsome…
Read Article
the ask@AAR: Do you have a reading resolution you’d like to share?
January 1, 2021It’s the first day of 2021 and, really, it’s not a moment too soon. Worst year ever? No. That goes to 1348 when the Black Death wiped out half of…
Read Article
the ask@AAR: What’s your favorite Bridgerton and why?
December 25, 2020Many of us sat down today and started streaming Bridgerton on Netflix. The TV show is such a big deal it’s been (positively) reviewed in both the Washington Post and…
Read Article
the ask@AAR: What’s your favorite holiday film?
December 18, 2020Every year, in December, there’s a bevy of social media postings and articles about how much people loathe Love, Actually. And, of course, there are a host of articles and…
Read Article
the ask@AAR: What’s the greatest sex scene in romance?
December 11, 2020Every year, for almost 20 years, the Literary Review has awarded a Bad Sex in Fiction Award. Here’s the criteria (we will not discuss that this award doesn’t consider romance…
Read Article
Anyone watching Virgin River?
December 9, 2020While the world is avidly discussing the upcoming Shondaland production of Bridgerton, bazillions of Netflix watchers are already hooked on a series based on a set (21 and counting) of…
Read Article
the ask@AAR: Whose story do you long to have told?
December 4, 2020In anticipation of the upcoming Bridgerton show and because The Bridgertons: Happily Ever After was on sale last week, I finally read the latter. (We reviewed it here.) I was…
Read Article
A Guest Post by Debbie Baldwin: The Fairytale Conundrum
November 28, 2020Happy Holidays, AAR readers! My name is Debbie Baldwin, and I am the author of the Bishop Security romantic suspense series. The first novel, False Front, is currently available in…
Read Article
