Often I post book covers to illustrate this blog, but today, we’re dipping way back into the past, and I’ve got gorgeous, vintage sheet music. Before there were records, let alone CDs, mp3s, and so on, even before there was radio, there was sheet music. Americans entertained themselves by playing the piano—the must-have home possession  … Read more

When I used to read thirty romances a month (yes, I really did), I knew exactly which stores had the newest books, and what day of the month they were delivered. And I knew which books had been hanging around for months, and which were hot off the presses. I’m a little out of practice  … Read more

Recently the Wall Street Journal had an article describing the boom in Amish romances. These are not romances written by the Amish for the Amish. They are written by the non-Amish and meant for a general romance audience that does not want sex in their romances and likes the idea of a simple life in  … Read more

A new humor book, How Not to Act Old, strongly suggests that only Old People use terms like “making love” and “sleeping with.” Young People say “having sex,” and “f**king.” Yikes. And that’s how they think, too. It’s just sex to them. Not love or romance. The book, by Pamela Redmond Satran, includes a guide  … Read more

Paranormal romances are big sellers these days. But it’s hard to know what is and what is not a paranormal romance, especially because there seems to be a fine line between that definition and urban fantasy, another very hot subgenre. For instance, Lara Adrian’s Ashes of Midnight is published by Dell as a paranormal romance  … Read more

I just read a copy of Vanora Bennett’s second novel, Figures in Silk, which is about a City of London silkwoman who gets caught up in the turmoil of the last years of the Wars of the Roses, between 1471 and 1485. I’m not giving anything away by saying that the heroine has a long-term  … Read more

I was going to write about free romances available on the Internet. After all, MyRomanceStory.com offers free romances (in case you came to this page without visiting our home page, check it out), but we aren’t the only ones. I just downloaded a batch from Harlequin as part of its 60th anniversary celebration. If you  … Read more

Despite a complete lack of encouragement from my family, or from my social and educational milieu, I was drawn to romance novels in my early teens. My acquaintances were reading serious literature. Really, they were. I had more than a passing familiarity with serious literature and high culture, but I was drawn to stories about  … Read more

I found this photo stuck in an old novel that had been in the basement of a neighbor. My neighbor’s late wife of half a century had gotten the book at a yard sale, he thought. But who was this youngish man in the photo? A family member? A stranger? He’s well dressed, in a  … Read more

People who don’t read romances often dismiss them by saying they are all the same. This sameness is given as the main reason that romance should be considered trash fiction. The haters usually go on to insist that there is a formula that authors use to write romances. And that anything written to a formula  … Read more