Essays & Musings
What We’ve Been Thinking About
Thoughts on books, reading, culture, and the literary life.
Linda Howard's Troublemaker: A Pandora's Box
May 9, 2016Today, 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…
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O Harlequin, Where Art Thou? asks Michele Mills
May 5, 2016Once 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…
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A Guest Post and Giveaway from M.L. Buchman
May 4, 2016The 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…
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Deadly Peril: An Audio DIK
May 3, 2016Narrated 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…
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And the most reviewed authors at AAR are….
May 1, 2016One 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…
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Metaphor Sex is the best!
April 27, 2016On 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…
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A guest post (and a giveaway) from Jodi Thomas
April 26, 2016When 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…
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The Weekend DIK: The Glittering Court
April 23, 2016Fans 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…
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Playing with Fire: A DIK review
April 22, 2016Liam 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…
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A sneak peak at Katee Robert's The Wedding Pact
April 21, 2016Our 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…
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YA: It Doesn't Always Have to Break Your Heart
April 17, 2016Caroline: I was a teenager when I first read Harry Potter, and I remember how completely shocked and stricken I was by the death of Cedric Diggory. He was the…
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Edge of Obsession: The DIK of the Week
April 16, 2016I follow Jill Sorenson on Twitter and, a few days ago, this Tweet popped up in her feed. I clicked on the Goodreads link and began reading her review. When I…
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