Here is my goal for 2026: Fail. I’m going to fail to start listening to podcasts because, frankly, I like my own thoughts and the sound of very little. I’m going to fail to do more at work–I’m giving up some big things and focusing, instead, on lesser ones that give me more unstructured time….
I lost my faith in God by thirteen, though not before giving the heavens every chance to make their case. I’d sit in my tree fort, legs dangling (it was the 70s and thus remarkably unsafe) thinking, “I’m here. Anytime now.” Perhaps I wasn’t doing it right, but the heavens never spoke to me. (I’ve…
It’s National Hispanic Heritage Month (September 15–October 15) which means it’s time to celebrate the full range of romances by Latin authors. These writers bring new perspectives to familiar tropes and settings, reminding us how wide the genre really is. We honor them all and here are a few recent ones AAR reviewers have enjoyed. …
The latest–always interesting and worth your time–Romancing the Data report is explicit. Last month, Amazon’s Kindle Store added 34,467 new romance titles. Of the Top 100 bestsellers, 63% were self-published, 12% came from the Big Five, nearly three-quarters were in Kindle Unlimited, and the average price was $5.87. Romance is now a marketplace where Amazon—and…
Among romance readers, the question of which Loretta Chase novel is the greatest has never been settled. There are SO many fabulous choices. Lord of Scoundrels dominated our Top 100 polls for nearly two decades. Dain is one of the genre’s great creations—an alpha so exaggerated he borders on caricature—yet Chase makes him unforgettable. Jessica…
Coming Soon – The Books We’re Most Looking Forward to Reading in August 2025 We would love to hear which books you’re looking forward to in the coming weeks. Here are a few from our AAR reviewers. (You can see them all at Amazon here.) Are you excited about any of these? Let us know! …
Last 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 of all fiction sales. These are astonishing numbers, the kind that suggest a field that’s thriving. And yet, as someone who reads widely and obsessively…
This 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 out a revised edition. I was at an absurdly hip underground pop-up dinner (eleven tiny courses based around the 1968 Volkswagen bus) and seated across from a…
If 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 and place burst off the page—you already know what makes this genre extraordinary. Maybe you’ve debated whether the title Duke is overused, have strong feelings…
I 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 just another genre of marketing. Public declarations of enthusiasm have replaced engagement. Five stars have become the default. And somewhere in all that cheerleading, we’ve…
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