Romance and Me: What do you love the most about Historical Romance?

Hey Everyone!

Welcome back to #3 of our Historical Romance sessions. Today let’s talk about what we love the most about historical romance stories!

I personally love them because they are the “grown up” version of fairy tales: there are princes (or at least dukes ) and fair maidens, villain step-mothers and jealous sisters and of course a love that conquers all. I love the escape HR novels provide from the real world, that for those hours when I’m reading such a book there are gowns and balls and carriages and etiquette. And if I had to pick only one favourite thing from all the things I love about this genre is the fact that due to the time period’s social restrictions the love story between the h/h is even more heightened: every small glimpse and touch becomes more just because liberties aren’t done. …

Romance and Me: What’s your favourite HR time period?

Hey Everyone!

Welcome back to #2 of our Historical Romance sessions. Today we’ll discuss time periods. One of the best things about historical romance stories is that they come in all shapes and sizes i.e. set in so many different time periods. There are some set in Ancient Egypt (like Priestess of the Nile), Greece or Rome, Medieval times (all those delicious Highlander heroes *dreamy sighs*), then there are the many set in Regency/Victorian/Edwardian England with those dashing dukes and rogues, and sure there are the more modern ones set during World War I or II or later, just to name a few.

I love them all without any discrimination. I never discard a HR story based solely on the time period it is set in. I can’t pick one favourite time period I love above all the others, but there are certainly …

Romance and Me: Do you like the Historical Romance Sub-genre?

Hey Everyone!

When creating this bi-weekly feature we brainstormed that it would be a good opportunity to highlight and discuss the various romance subgenres as there are so many. Well the time has finally come to start our venture into Romance Sub-genres 101.

As Jackie needs her blackboard for her Elements of Lit 201 class, why not make this a more relaxed event and take a comfortable seat around the coffee table, you can choose from the sofa, armchairs, the plush carpet or even bean bags and let us begin!

Our first sub-genre to explore will be historical romance. As it is such a vast genre and we can discuss so many related topics it will be the subject of our discussions for a few weeks.

So to warm up the session,  as I knew that our little Book Lovers team was quite heterogeneous on the subject …

The Romance and Me Reading Challenge 2012

I love participating in reading challenges but I only discovered how much fun it was to organize them as well when I hosted the Book Lovers Inc Holiday Reading Challenge. Well I am back with a new challenge for 2012:

The Romance and Me Reading Challenge!

Why is this challenge different from the others? I’ll tell you, because every month we’ll be exploring new horizons of the romance genre! But here it is in more details:

Rules:

1. You have to read at least 1 book per month from the monthly theme.

2. There will be a monthly theme: each month we will explore a different romance sub-genre.

3. The challenge runs from 15 January 2012 until 31 December 2012, you can join anytime.

4. You can join the challenge by submitting the link of your general sign up post in the linky below (if …

Romance and Me: A Ghost Love Story or Romance Busters?

Hey Everyone!

Today’s discussion topic was inspired by our special author guest Stacey Kennedy and her latest release Supernaturally Kissed, which is a paranormal romance story between a breathing living heroine and a deceased ghost hero (you can read our dual review here).  I was immediately intrigued by the concept of how could an author write a love story, romantic relationship between a living person and a ghost and have the readers believe in their love and happiness? We romance lovers need our hero and heroine to touch, kiss, make love, then how can an author make a romantic relationship sound satisfactory and fulfilling without any physical contact? Is it possible?

To get the answer to the above question I asked my fellow Book Lovers, curious to see whether they have read any ghost romances and if they believe that ghost romances can be just as good …

Romance and Me: What’s your story?

Hey Everyone!

We have been discussing romance novel related topics for some months now, and even though you have told me about your firsts, I still haven’t heard your story. The story of how you discovered and fell in love with the romance genre.

Was it love at first read? Or did it take several books? What kind of romance novel is your favourite?

I started out by falling for historical romances, I’ve always loved period dramas, so reading historical romance stories felt natural to me. But somehow I wasn’t eager to read contemporary romances, the only exception were Nora Roberts books. (I discovered the whole romance genre thanks to my high school best friend lending me one of NR’s stories, and she became my “Nora Roberts dealer”.) HR was my first and only love for a very long time. I only got to …

Romance and Me: Holiday Romances

Hey Everyone!

Only 2 more weeks and it is Christmas!! *wait a few moments while I jump up and down and calm down my excitement* Ok I’m back. So with the holidays fast approaching I think the topic of today’s discussion is quite obvious: it’s time we talked about holiday romances!

Starting from the end of October holiday themed books start to flood bookshelves, and after mid-November everywhere you look you see Christmassy covers and holiday-related titles.

Until last year somehow I haven’t noticed this trend (maybe because I wasn’t blogging yet), but I participated in my very first holiday reading challenge last year and thanks to it I discovered the sub-category of holiday romances and became a fan! Maybe it’s because I love Christmas, and everything related to the holidays, or that I’ve always enjoyed holiday films as well, but I know that the combination …

Romance and Me: The Small Town Romance Subgenre

Hey Everyone! Welcome to another Romance and Me discussion, this time on our shiny new and very festive site! (don’t you just love the snowflakes? They are a favourite of mine!)
 
Are you wondering what we’ll be talking about today? A sub-genre of contemporary romances that I particularly like, namely: small town romances!
 
But what are small town romances? A lot of contemporary romances feature a trendy hero or heroine who has a hip job in the big city returning for whatever reason to their small hometown, and hating the small town life at the beginning. Then chapter by chapter the big city big shot character starts to see and value the advantages of small town life: how people are friendly and nice, noone is ever in a hurry, and all in all life seems sweeter and saner. And usually at the end of the novel we see the big city …

Romance and Me: The Enemies to Lovers Trope

I thought we could once again talk about the frequently revisited tropes in romance stories.

If you remember I have already told you how much I love the Friends to Lovers trope in romance novels, today I would like to talk to you about another favourite trope of mine: the just as popular and beloved Enemies to Lovers one!

I think the reason for my enthusiasm and preference for this trope is quite obvious: when an author chooses to create an enemies-to-lovers story the hero and heroine are expected to have a lot of fights, banters, teasing, which are the perfect opportunity for the author to shine their writing talent and creativity and portray some interesting and vivid characters and the best sparkling and explosive dialogue there can be. I just love when the hero/heroine get in each other’s face and their discussion (=quarrel) …

Romance and Me: The Widower as Romantic Hero

Hey Everyone!

In the past couple of weeks I read two novels where the heroes were widowers and it got me thinking.

Lately I have seen this new trend in historical romances that more and more heroines are made out to be widows instead of innocent virgins, so that the story and the hero can get to the steamy seduction part faster since the heroine has already been introduced to the world of “carnal pleasure” (even if of course with her first husband it was just “meh”), but these two novels made me realize, that I haven’t come across any widower heroes… until now.

The interesting part was that one of these novels was a contemporary, funny romance (Until There Was You by Kristan Higgins) while the other was a historical romance (Romancing the Countess by Ashley March). But basically both made me ponder the same …