Essays & Musings
What We’ve Been Thinking About
Thoughts on books, reading, culture, and the literary life.
The SA in NA
January 31, 2014[fusion_builder_container hundred_percent=”yes” overflow=”visible”][fusion_builder_row][fusion_builder_column type=”1_1″ background_position=”left top” background_color=”” border_size=”” border_color=”” border_style=”solid” spacing=”yes” background_image=”” background_repeat=”no-repeat” padding=”” margin_top=”0px” margin_bottom=”0px” class=”” id=”” animation_type=”” animation_speed=”0.3″ animation_direction=”left” hide_on_mobile=”no” center_content=”no” min_height=”none”] A few months ago, I wrote…
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Opening the Young Adult Special Titles List
January 29, 2014Unique among AAR’s Special Titles Listings, the YA list originally depended on the taste of three readers only. Three teenagers with ties to AAR listed their favorite books – both…
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Tessa Dare releases her latest and Harper Collins offers a give-a-way
January 28, 2014Tessa 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, 2014On 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, 2014In 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, 2014One 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, 2014Ash, 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, 2014Today, 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, 2014It’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, 2014I 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, 2014Since 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, 2013I 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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Sometimes a name is just a name
on offense, accommodation, and the value of getting the facts right
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A Novel Is Not a Safe Space
Books are allowed to offend you. You are allowed to close them. Everybody survives.
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Prestige TV rediscovers the joy of family and friends
sappy for the win–really
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