The Journal
Blog
Thoughts on books, reading, culture, and the literary life.
The Narrowing of the HEA
May 27, 2025Last year, romance sold nearly 39 million print books in the U.S.—a 52% jump from the year before. The genre brought in $1.44 billion and made up almost a quarter…
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the ask@AAR: What can we do better?
May 23, 2025At All About Romance, we’ve built our reputation on honest, thoughtful engagement with the genre, but that only matters if we’re meeting the needs of the people who come here….
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the ask@AAR: The Ask@AAR: From Soft to Savage—What’s Hot in Heroes Now?
May 16, 2025Romance heroes used to smolder. Now, it feels as though half of them want to hold your purse while you process your feelings, and the other half want to handcuff…
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Maya Rodale talks about Dangerous Books for Girls
May 13, 2025This book is on sale right now to celebrate its tenth anniversary. (This piece was originally published on June 15, 2015.) I interviewed Maya again, in 2023, when she put…
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the ask@AAR: Are we done with fairy tales?
May 9, 2025Fairy tales, like myths, have always been used to teach us how to behave. Snow White is rewarded for her beauty and domesticity. Sleeping Beauty is punished for disobedience, then…
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the ask@AAR: What do we–currently–think about dual timeline novels?
May 2, 2025This week, my book club met to discuss The Lost Apothecary. Almost all found it deeply annoying. The past timeline—murder, poison, betrayal—had some narrative pull. But the present-day plot never…
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Love Historical Romance? Write for AAR.
April 30, 2025If you’ve ever finished a historical romance and found yourself thinking about it for days—the way the heroine claimed her power (for better or for worse), the way another time…
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the ask@AAR: Can We Love Books and Still Be Honest?
April 25, 2025I review books for a living — which these days makes me something of an anachronism. Reviews, once a way to think out loud about art, are increasingly treated as…
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the ask@AAR: What is your favorite of Madeline Hunter’s many works?
April 18, 2025With the death of Madeline Hunter, historical romance loses one of its sharpest minds and quietest radicals. Her books were among the first that made me feel like the genre…
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the ask@AAR: What do we think about babies these days?
April 11, 2025Lately, I’ve been thinking about babies in romance novels. Not as plot twists or conveniently timed disruptions—though a surprise pregnancy can still complicate things in interesting ways—but as a future…
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the ask@AAR: What is the perfect comfort read when you’re grieving?
April 4, 2025Grief is the price of love. This phrase, popularized by Queen Elizabeth II, is on my mind today. This week, the life of a close friend, an amazing woman, was…
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the ask@AAR: As Fiction Changes, Does Our View of Men Change Too?
March 28, 2025For many years, one of the ways women encountered men—beyond family, school, and daily life—was through books. The novels most often assigned in schools treated male characters with complexity and…
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