What We’ve Been Thinking About

Essays & Musings

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

Tessa Dare releases her latest and Harper Collins offers a give-a-way

January 28, 2014

Tessa Dare, a perennial favorite here at AAR, releases her latest novel, Romancing the Duke, today.

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The Top Top picks of 2013

January 27, 2014

On Friday we shared the books AAR staffers chose as their favorite book of 2013. The list is varied with romances from almost every genre selected by at least one…

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American Indians, Amazing Animals, Time Travel

January 22, 2014

In December we opened up three Special Title Lists for new submissions: the American Indian list, Amazing Animals, and Time Travel. We’ll have to be honest, we didn’t really expect…

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Caroline Linden on historical erotica and the sexual mores of an earlier era

January 20, 2014

One of my favorite books of 2013 is Caroline Linden’s Love and Other Scandals. It’s the first in a series in which young women discover an erotic serial called 50…

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Guest column: Historical romance author Rose Lerner talks about the history behind her Jewish hero

January 19, 2014

Ash, the hero of my Regency romance True Pretenses, is a Jewish con artist who grew up in a London rookery and has been passing as a Gentile for a…

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The Countess Conspiracy: a Pandora’s Box

January 17, 2014

Today, Mary and Dabney discuss (and disagree about) Courtney Milan’s The Countess Conspiracy.

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It’s time for the annual AAR Reader Poll!

January 13, 2014

It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year may be a song about the Christmas season and, in the last many years, that day when kids finally go back to…

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Where do you keep your romances?

January 10, 2014

I lived a transitory, small-apartment life for a number of years, and my romance keepers lived in the spare room of my mother’s house. Now I’m living for the first…

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How to write a romance… or not

January 8, 2014

Since I learned there was such a thing as a How to Write book, I’ve loved those suckers. Even the books that were too basic for me offered something —…

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An interview with Courtney Milan (and a giveaway!)

December 30, 2013

I am a Courtney Milan fan. I’ve read all her novels and novellas. She shines for me in two very clear ways. One, she is a superb novella writer. Two,…

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Sarah MacLean talks about romance, the New York Times, and upending tropes

December 16, 2013

Sarah, this fall the New York Times Book Review published a “Sex” issue that lacked any coverage of the romance or erotica genre. (I read it and steam came out of…

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