Essays & Musings
What We’ve Been Thinking About
Thoughts on books, reading, culture, and the literary life.
Which is the greatest Loretta Chase romance?
August 20, 2025Among romance readers, the question of which Loretta Chase novel is the greatest has never been settled. There are SO many fabulous choices. Lord of Scoundrels dominated our Top 100…
Read Article
the ask@AAR: Is romance REALLY limited to six plots?
August 15, 2025I read this recent article in Book Riot with amusement. Honestly, I found it a bit simplistic and, well, a bit silly. First of all the idea that a swath…
Read Article
the ask@AAR: Any one using AI? If so, how?
August 8, 2025This column is not, I promise you, written by AI. I’ve never published anything that is wholly written by AI. I have, however, published work that is helped by AI–sometimes…
Read Article
August Releases! What are you excited about?
August 4, 2025Coming Soon – The Books We’re Most Looking Forward to Reading in August 2025 We would love to hear which books you’re looking forward to in the coming weeks….
Read Article
the ask@AAR: What do YOU think are the best films of this century?
August 1, 2025I’ve read, several times, the New York Times’ list of the Best Films of the 21st Century and, man, does it miss the mark. (You can see the list at…
Read Article
the ask@AAR: What can’t you forgive in a lead?
July 25, 2025Last night, Dr. Feelgood, my friend Ann and I watched The Man Who Knew Too Much. I had seen it in college and loved it. Morocco! Que Sera Sera! Jimmy…
Read Article
the ask@AAR: What should it cost a library to lend out an ebook?
July 18, 2025Today’s ask is inspired by a recent New York Times article about something many readers probably don’t think much about: how libraries pay for ebooks. Several states, including Connecticut and…
Read Article
the ask@AAR: What have you been reading lately?
July 11, 2025I’ve been on a damn good reading run. As usual, I’ve read a bunch of books that will come out later in the year, but, in the interest of conversation,…
Read Article
Make Jeff Bezos Pay for Our Web Hosting…..
July 8, 2025Amazon Prime Day runs this year from July 8 through July 11—four full days of deals. If you’re planning to shop, whether for books or anything else, we’d be grateful…
Read Article
the ask@AAR: Closed door? Open door? Or somewhere inbetween?
July 4, 2025Romance has always had a complicated relationship with sex. Not with desire—that’s a given—but with how desire is handled on the page. Is it explicit? Is it suggestive? Does it…
Read Article
the ask@AAR: What romance belongs on the screen?
June 27, 2025Romance novels are all over the big and small screen. Bridgerton, Virgin River, The Hating Game, One Day, Red, White & Royal Blue—they’ve all drawn huge audiences and proved, again,…
Read Article
Casablanca: Play it again
June 25, 2025I recently watched Casablanca with my mother and my daughter—three generations of women. I’d seen it before, decades ago. It’s one of my mother’s favorites and my daughter–who picked it–had…
Read Article
