What We’ve Been Thinking About

Essays & Musings

Thoughts on books, reading, culture, and the literary life.

Dee Ernst on Writing, Getting Older, and Lessons Learned (and a giveaway!)

May 16, 2016

I began writing when I was in my forties, and I began for one important reason — I couldn’t find any books that I really enjoyed reading. I was a…

Read Article

DIKlassic: Never Love a Cowboy by Lorraine Heath

May 11, 2016

Reviewed on April 20, 2000 Grade: A Setting: Post-Civil War Texas Sensuality: Warm Never Love a Cowboy is the kind of book that makes me wonder why I’m not more familiar with…

Read Article

Linda Howard's Troublemaker: A Pandora's Box

May 9, 2016

Today, AAR reviewers Maggie Boyd and Mary Skelton tackle Troublemaker, the latest book by New York Time’s bestseller Linda Howard. Here is Maggie’s summary of the novel: Isabeau “Bo” Maran…

Read Article

O Harlequin, Where Art Thou? asks Michele Mills

May 5, 2016

Once upon a time, back in the dark ages of the late eighties, I read a Barbara Cartland. I figured, why not give it a go? I’d heard Ms. Cartland…

Read Article

A Guest Post and Giveaway from M.L. Buchman

May 4, 2016

The Three Components a Firehawks Book Must Have When I first conceived the Firehawks series, I had absolutely no idea what I was doing. I never do at the beginning…

Read Article

Deadly Peril: An Audio DIK

May 3, 2016

Narrated by Alex Wyndham We first meet Alec Halsey in Lucinda Brant’s Deadly Engagement, where he investigates the death of a friend, and then again in Deadly Affair, with another murder…

Read Article

And the most reviewed authors at AAR are….

May 1, 2016

One of the features I love most about AAR is the extensive, easily searchable review database. There are literally thousands of romance reviews at my fingertips and anytime I need…

Read Article

Metaphor Sex is the best!

April 27, 2016

On the strength of Maggie Boyd’s DIK review, I tried Uprooted by Naomi Novik. I found one of my favorite writing ideas in there: metaphor sex! I’m not talking about…

Read Article

A guest post (and a giveaway) from Jodi Thomas

April 26, 2016

When I begin working on a new story I always do something I call “walking the land.” I take a few weeks, or sometimes a few months and wander through…

Read Article

The Weekend DIK: The Glittering Court

April 23, 2016

Fans of Kiera Cass’ Selection series won’t want to miss The Glittering Court, book one in Richelle Mead’s trilogy of the same title. It’s a captivating story of forbidden love…

Read Article

Playing with Fire: A DIK review

April 22, 2016

Liam Carroll and Robert McKenzie grew up together in the worst part of Glasgow. When Liam came out to his best friend Robert, Robert stuck by him. And when Liam…

Read Article

A sneak peak at Katee Robert's The Wedding Pact

April 21, 2016

Our reviewer Haley enjoyed the first book in Katee Robert’s O’Malleys series, The Marriage Contract (her review is here). The second one, The Wedding Pact, comes out next week. Ms. Robert’s kind…

Read Article