Cover Reveal: Bound To You by AR DeClerck

I'm participating in the cover reveal for AR DeClerck's next science fiction romance, Bound To You. I was one of the beta readers for the first draft, and it is one awesome ride! The cover perfectly captures my mental images of Jacks and Lia.

Here's the blurb for it.

Jackson Baine is a man with a gift, and he has never had a problem with selling it to the highest bidder. His newest job is with one of the biggest terraforming companies in the universe, and the money he stands to make will allow him and his crew to retire on any planet in any galaxy they choose. His biggest problem: Ferrell Terraforming has assigned him a company liason to see to his needs and protect their interests. But that’s not his only problem. Lia Bernardi is smart, beautiful and strong, and she entices Jacks in a way no other woman ever has. She is a distraction he cannot afford on the surface. 

Anatolia Bernardi is ready to climb the corporate ladder, get out from under her egotistical boss, and impress her overbearing father. All she has to do is turn one dead, empty planet into an oasis. Her company says Jacks Baine is the key, and it’s her job to make sure he’s productive and happy. Both of which, she soon learns, are harder than she’d thought they’d be. For some reason Jacks can get under her skin and break down every wall she’s constructed between herself and the world. 

On the surface of a long-dead planet Jacks and Lia will be forced to face the startling realization that the past never really goes away.

The book releases 4/24/15. You can preorder it at Amazon.

AR DeClerck lives in the Quad Cities, IL. She is a wife and mother of two daughters. She has two dogs and a cat, and always has her nose in a book. She’s either reading one, or writing one. She writes romance in many sub-genres, and has always had a soft spot for sci-fi romance. She credits her love of reading and writing to her mother, who always keeps a book handy.

Find AR on Facebook, Twitter, and Goodreads.

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Cover reveal for Keir by Pippa Jay

I am beyond excited to be participating in the cover reveal for the re-issue of Keir by Pippa Jay. Keir was the first SFR I read in 2012, and I fell in love with him on the first page. He's everything I want my hero to be: tragic, wounded, and struggling to find a reason to live.

Isn't it awesome? Yes, Keir is blue.Here's the blurb.

A demon waiting to die...

An outcast reviled for his discolored skin and rumors of black magic, Keirlan de Corizi sees no hope for redemption. Imprisoned beneath the palace that was once his home, the legendary 'Blue Demon of Adalucian' waits for death to finally free him of his curse. But salvation comes in an unexpected guise.

A woman determined to save him.

Able to cross space and time with a wave of her hand, Tarquin Secker has spent eternity on a hopeless quest. Drawn by a compulsion she can't explain, she risks her apparent immortality to save Keir, and offers him sanctuary on her home-world, Lyagnius. But Quin has secrets of her own.

When Keir mistakenly unleashes the dormant alien powers within him and earns exile from Lyagnius, Quin chooses to stand by him. Can he master his newfound abilities in time to save Quin from the darkness that seeks to possess her?

Keir is Book One of the Redemption series and part of the Travellers Universe. Previously released by Lyrical Press Inc. 7th May 2012 and a SFR Galaxy Award for SciFi Romance for Best May-December Romance (2012), Aspen Gold Readers Choice Award 3rd place finalist (2013), Readers' Favorite International Book Award finalist(2012), The Kindle Book Review’s Best Indie Book Awards Nominee for Best SciFi/Fantasy (2013).

Please add it to your Goodreads shelf HERE, or sign up HERE for my no-spam newsletter for special previews on cover reveals, new releases, the latest giveaways and discounts, and upcoming news.

Here's Pippa's bio. (And check out the rest of her stuff! She's got a great variety out right now and is one of my favorite authors, in addition to being a friend.)

After spending twelve years working as an Analytical Chemist in a Metals and Minerals laboratory, Pippa Jay is now a stay-at-home mum who writes scifi and the supernatural. Somewhere along the way a touch of romance crept into her work and refused to leave. In between torturing her plethora of characters, she spends the odd free moment playing guitar very badly, punishing herself with freestyle street dance, and studying the Dark Side of the Force. Although happily settled in the historical town of Colchester in the UK with her husband of 21 years and three little monsters, she continues to roam the rest of the Universe in her head.

Pippa Jay is a dedicated member of the Science Fiction Romance Brigade, blogging at 

Spacefreighters Lounge, Adventures in Scifi, and Romancing the Genres. Her works include YA and adult stories crossing a multitude of subgenres from scifi to the paranormal, often with romance, and she’s one of eight authors included in a science fiction romance anthology—Tales from the SFR Brigade. She’s also a double SFR Galaxy Award winner, been a finalist in the Heart of Denver RWA Aspen Gold Contest (3rd place), the EPIC eBook awards, and the GCC RWA Silken Sands Star Awards (2nd place).

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The Importance of Meeting Reader Expectations

Happy New Year, everyone! This is a long post, and probably controversial. You have been warned.

I write science fiction romance. It's a genre with something for everyone and is one of the most diverse romance sub-genres you'll ever encounter. It's fun to explore. But there are a couple of problems I've noticed in my reading the last few months and they're really bugging me.

The first is reader expectation. I'm not just a romance author, I'm a romance reader. As a romance reader I have certain expectations when I pick up a book labeled as romance. The most important one is that the book centers on the hero and heroine's developing romance. They are the main characters and everything else is secondary. Including the other characters. If you remove the romance the entire story falls apart. The romance is the foundation of the novel.

I'm starting to think there's a lack of understanding within SFR about what a romance really is. The one I most recently finished was billed to me as a romance. It wasn't. It was romantic at best. When I pick up something billed as a romance I expect the focus to be on the hero and heroine, watching them fall in love, deal with their issues, and conquer the conflict keeping them apart.

When you tell me something is a romance, and yet I read it and there's no romance, the author has lied to her readers. That's a great way to turn people off on a genre. Especially when it happens several times in a row. As it did with me last month. I've maintained for two years now that in order for SFR to take off we have to get the true romance reader hooked. That's not going to happen if the romance reader's expectations aren't met.

Which brings me to my other point. When the book's description tells me a certain character is the main character, and yet that character is the one with the least POV space, you're once again lying to your potential readers. The one I most recently finished, and that set this post off, was billed to me by the book description as the thing I love best: a hero-centric romance.

That's not what I got. I didn't get a romance. I didn't get significant time in the hero's head. I didn't even get any plot resolution. It ended on a massive, massive, massive cliffhanger. One with no hope these two people who are supposedly in love ever getting back together. I don't buy their romance, because it didn't go through any of the things a romance reader expects. And there's no book two.

We read romances for the intimate moments of watching two people fall in love. It can be fast, it can be slow, it can be love at first sight, it can be soul mates, it can be star-crossed lovers. Doesn't matter. No matter how it happens, there are still things we expect to see.

I only give so many chances. When my expectations as a romance reader aren't met, I'm gone. And I'm not coming back. I'll also tell other romance readers to steer clear of a certain title.

There's nothing wrong with being an SF writer first. But there is something wrong with not taking the time to understand what truly makes a romance work. In order to have a successful SFR that gains mass appeal and hooks romance readers, you can't shortchange the romance reader's expectations.

We romance readers are the bulk of the fiction readership in the United States. For SFR to survive and thrive, you have to take us seriously and meet our expectations.

*Image courtesy of photostock, FreeDigitalPhotos.net

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The King's Mistress is coming!

WARNING: Spoilers ahead for My Name Is A'yen! Proceed with caution.

You have been warned. :)

I'm starting edits on The King's Mistress this next week, and I'm very excited about it. The book is going to be so much better once I'm done with them.

The book has had this title since the very beginning. I started it two days after I finished the first draft of My Name Is A'yen. The title is significant in the A'yen's Legacy universe.

At the end of the first book A'yen finds out his family line, through his father, is the long-lost royal family. It's a cosmic shift in his identity and changes the way he looks at his past. He's not quite sure he's up for it and fears losing who he is in order to be who the Lokmane need him to be.

So he's a future king. And he's owned by his wife, because the Lokmane are still enslaved when the novel opens. Fae is, literally, the king's mistress. This one explores her character a little more, though A'yen is still the one running the show. You'll learn more about her background, what her family is like, and meet her half-brothers.

In this one you also meet Da'Ro, another Me like Na'var in My Name Is A'yen. Ro borders on being an antihero and I had so much fun writing him and doing things I'd never done before. Along the way he stole my heart, and I hope he steals yours too. He's a broken man searching for a reason to live. He's lost everything and everyone who's ever cared about him, and the list was small to begin with. He's hated and feared by other Lokmane, and for good reason. He's the most dangerous kind of Me--a mind-hopper.

What is a mind-hopper? Well, to find that out you'll have to read the book when it comes out.

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How many books do you read?

I'm a writer. I pay attention to what's going on in my industry, how technology is changing how we read, and I find reading habit studies interesting. Last week I stumbled across an article in Slate (probably via the Publisher's Weekly daily email) about the death of e-readers.

Why did this catch my attention? Because Barnes and Noble is finally spinning Nook off into its own division, like they've been saying they're going to do for at least two years now. I own a Nook. In fact, I'm on my second one. Bought a Simple Touch on Black Friday when it was half off and I love it.

Anyway, back to the Slate article. It notes how sales of e-readers are starting to decline and makes reference to several tech writers who are starting to say the e-reader is in its death throes. Smart phones and tablets are changing how we do everything, including reading. But not necessarily to the benefit of readers or authors, or brain development and cognitive skills.

I have an e-reader for one reason: I don't like reading books on a computer screen. Or on my phone, or on a tablet screen. I work on computers all day, whether I'm writing, goofing off on Facebook, email, or doing actual work for my job. When I go to bed I don't want to be staring at yet another backlit screen. Not to mention backlit screen use after dark can wreak havoc with my brain's ability to shut down for sleep. And I'm not alone in this.

But what really caught my interest in the article was the reference to this survey from 2012. It found that readers who own e-readers read, on average, 24 books per year, while those who don't own an e-reader read on average 15 books per year. That got me wondering. How many books have I read so far this year? Since I have a Goodreads shelf called Read In 2014, it was easy to find out.

My total so far this year? 29. Don't believe me? If you have a Goodreads account go look.The shelf says 27, but that's because one of the books shelved is a boxed set of three books. And yes, I've been doing a lot of binge reading this year. It's my favorite way to read. I love series, and when I get hooked on one I have to read them ALL.

And I can say with certainty having a Nook has led me to buying more books. I bought 90% of the Dark-Hunter series in ebook last year when they were on sale for the release of Styxx. Styxx was #23. I've also discovered new authors from picking up freebies, like Elisabeth Naughton. 

How many books have YOU read this year?

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Coming Soon: My Name Is A'yen

My last post here shared some of the journey I've been on the last five years. This one's going to share some more, and there's a HUGE announcement involved.

I've been dabbling in writing all my life, creating characters, spending thousands of hours playing with them in my head. I created a huge family who lived in the Colorado Rockies, and shared them with a friend and my sister. The friend had characters, too, and my sister made some up. We spent hours playing with these characters whenever we were together, and we'd even write letters to each other as our various fictional friends. It was loads of fun.

For a couple years I wrote fan fiction with my sister and published it online at one of the main hubs for this fandom. Then I started writing fan fiction in another fandom and exploring the backstory of characters whose backgrounds were unknown. Eventually my interest in it petered out. But at the same time I got a new job as a tour guide at a plantation and there was downtime. I needed something to keep me occupied that wouldn't get me in trouble. So I turned to my O'Connor friends, the huge family, to keep me company. I have hundreds of pages of college ruled notebook paper filled front and back with pieces of their lives.

In 2007 I joined my first writers organization and began learning how to structure a novel and be a better writer. We were encouraged to pick one genre, so I settled on historical romance. A few years went by, the events of my last post happened, and I ended up abandoning it for science fiction romance.

I've been on the submission trail with A'yen for two years. He's been sent to four publishers and an agent. All have said no. I tried to go back to my more traditional-friendly series, Slipstream, and couldn't. Though it wasn't for lack of trying!

The HUGE announcement is I've decided it's time to start self-publishing A'yen's Legacy. It's time to send him out into the big wide world and hope readers love him as much as I do. I'm hoping to have the first one, My Name Is A'yen, out in September, with the second and third to follow in January and April of next year. I'm hard at work on number four, and number five is written already.

I'm also starting a newsletter list, since Facebook is being so stingy with how many people it shows Page posts to. If you want to stay up to date and make sure you never miss anything, like my Facebook page and sign up for the newsletter. I promise I won't be emailing all the time, and it's not likely to ever be more than once a month.

Subscribe to my newsletter

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Five Years

Five years ago today I was getting ready for my wedding. I thought I was embarking on the greatest adventure of my life and I couldn't wait to get it started. Had I know then what would start in one short month I might not have walked down the aisle that night.

Eleven months later my happily ever after was dead. He wasn't a prince. He wasn't even a good man. He so thoroughly hoodwinked my entire family that my parents were having a hard time believing all the stuff I was telling them he had done. Even after I called the police on him and returned home, it took some time before it all sunk in that I hadn't been making it up, misreading things because of cultural differences, or imagining things to be worse than they were.

1400 miles are between us, so I never have to worry about running into him. I've severed all ties with him and his family.

Four years ago today I was curled up with my sister having a Lost In Space marathon and pointedly ignoring the ex and his parents who were trying to call me. What should have been my first wedding anniversary was instead my sister being her awesome self and giving me something else to think about.

My words were gone. I went from someone who wrote every day to someone who was dying to write but could not get a single word out. In any form. Fiction, journaling, shorts, random scenes. You name it, it was all locked inside me. NOTHING would come out, except a very angry letter to my ex in-laws that I never mailed.

Three years ago today my words had finally come back after spending a month with my grandmother helping her after she broke her femur. I would sit on her couch in the afternoons and play with my characters, tell her about the novel I was writing, and enjoy the all-encompassing peace that came with being around my beautiful grandmother. We buried her two days before I found out the divorce was final, but she knew it was coming. And more importantly she knew I was okay and once again embracing life.

In September 2011, at a writer's conference in St. Louis, I pitched my almost finished historical romance to two agents. Both of whom asked for the full, because "I've never seen this." Every submitting writer alive dreams of hearing "I've never seen this." One of my friends was right there when I came out of the first appointment and we hugged and jumped up and down. I was trying so hard not to cry right there in the hall. Not from sadness like the previous eighteen months, but from pure joy. It was rinse repeat the next day with my second appointment, more jumping up and down, more hugging, more celebrating, more sharing it with all my friends who had walked with me every step of my dark journey from dying inside to words pouring out of me once more.

Both agents ultimately said no, because they didn't think they could sell it, but both loved my voice and encouraged me to keep at it and come back with something easier to place. The rejection from one of them was so beautiful it didn't hurt at all. As I discovered two months later rejections from them was part of God's plan, because I didn't just change genres, I changed markets. From Christian to general.

Two years ago tonight I had a dream. I dreamed about a humanoid alien walking through a forest, saying one word over and over and over. It turned out to be his name. A'yen. His story was similar to the historical stuff I'd been immersed in, and let me play with themes I love, interracial relationships and the value of life. Except in A'yen's case it's interspecies. I wrote out a quick back cover type blurb while I ate breakfast on May 17th, 2012, did my work for the day, opened a new document and titled it My Name Is A'yen.

Eighty-six days later I had a completed 95,000 word novel in a genre I didn't know existed. Science fiction romance. My crit partner devoured it as fast as I churned it out, which was damn fast. She celebrated every milestone with me because she knew what all I had been through. She loves the story almost as much as I do.

One year ago today I found out I was still in the running at the Harper Voyager open call for their new digital first line. Ultimately they said no, but it was just what I needed to hear on just the right day.

What's my news today? I've written four novels in two years. FOUR NOVELS IN TWO YEARS. All over 95,000 words. I still can't quite believe what I've done. Still can't quite believe how dreams I'd never seriously entertained prior to the explosion of my marriage have become the driving force of my life and I know I'm doing what I'm supposed to do at this stage in my life. It's an amazing feeling.

May 16th is no longer the anniversary of a marriage that never stood a chance. It's no longer a reminder of the most painful time of my life. It's A'yen's anniversary. It's the dawning of the next chapter of my life. It's the day marking the beginning of exploring who I am as a writer and discovering a genre that gives me the freedom to write romance exactly how I want to write it.

I'm hoping the next five years are even better.

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I Have A Theory

Image courtesy of dan/FreeDigitalPhotos.net

I'm not ashamed of the fact I'm a romance reader. I enjoy it, obviously. I write it too.

As a writer I follow several industry blogs, and the two I read most often are the Steve Laube Agency blog and the Books & Such blog. Both agencies work almost exclusively in the CBA market, but there's a wealth of industry information shared and great tips for writers no matter what genre/market you write in.

On November fifth, Wendy Lawson of Books & Such did a post called The Trouble With Different.

To preface this, Wendy is talking exclusively about Christian fiction, but the general concepts of what she says are true in both markets. Being too different is hard. Read Sherrilyn Kenyon's publishing journey if you don't believe me. Once there was a time when no editor would touch what she writes.

Now, on to specifics of what Wendy said that I can't stop thinking about.

Sometimes the norm is that way because we’ve watched sales. For instance, we know romantic fiction sales will be strongest if the protagonist is a woman. So if you choose to be different by going with a male lead, you’ve already got a hurdle to cross with the sales people on the acquisitions committee.

While this statement is true in the CBA, it's not always true in the ABA. There's a vast number of authors who write at least equally in his POV. I'm exploring ABA romance, for the first time, and finding my hero POV needs much easier to fulfill.  I have always preferred his POV in a romance. The older I get, the more I prefer it. Weird, huh?

I commented on the post, which I do from time to time because the agents here usually reply. I said this:

I also gravitate to reading books largely in his POV. Part of my issue with first person, especially in a romance, is I’m locked into HER head. And I don’t care about her. Whenever I try to make it about her, the story shuts down. They stop talking. It doesn’t work. All the spark that is me and my voice disappears. If I write mostly in her POV I’ll never make it to the acquisitions committee in the first place. But my ABA romance told in 70% his POV is going further than my inspy HR forced into largely her POV ever did.

The 70% his POV is My Name Is A'yen. I have four POV's. Only one is a woman.

I've been thinking about this for almost two weeks now. What many CBA agents may not be aware of is the explosive growth of the M/M romance in the ebook market. It's so popular that Googling it gave me pages to go through.

Why is it so popular? And it's popularity pre-dates Fifty Shades by nearly five years. I won't rehash the history of the genre's rise, but it appears to be tied to slash fan fiction, which is dominated by women. Having been active in a fan fiction community for several years, the Hardy Boys, I know it's a fact women dominate it. And fan fiction communities tend to center around books with strong male protagonists.

In one of the articles I read the writer quoted Dr. Sarah S.G. Frantz, from a blog post she did in 2006.

...romances are actually about watching the hero figure out and confess his feelings, if they're about watching him move from the "masculine economy of use" to the "feminine economy of exchange," then watching TWO men have to figure it out for and with each other is more than twice as wonderful as watching one man figure it out for and with a woman.

I think she's on to something. For decades romances have been heroine-centric. To the point where I had a contest judge in 2011, who's published in Christian romance, tell me in my entry that readers don't care about him. It pissed me off, because it's not true.

What if the rise of M/M romance is directly related to the romance reader's desire for more hero-centric stories? Look at Sherrilyn Kenyon. The single most popular Dark-Hunter is Acheron. I'm in love with him. I read DH for pieces of him. I read DH for the men. And so do millions of others. As the series progresses, it focuses more and more on the heroes. Every single person in my life, real and online, knows when I crack open Acheron there will be a Do Not Disturb sign on my life, until I'm done with 700+ pages of Ash goodness.

Look at the rise of paranormal romance. It's centered around strong heroes who not only share the POV division equally, but quite often tip the division in their favor. There's a reason for this, and I think it has more to do with a hunger for his POV than it does with the novelty of vampires and shapeshifters.

This romance reader does not like heroine-centric stories. I'm sick of them, because they're everywhere. Especially in CBA romance where his existence is almost an afterthought most of the time. But on the other hand, M/M romance isn't something I read because much of it crosses lines I'm unwilling to cross in the graphic department. So what's a girl to do?

My answer: Write hero-centric traditional romances and hope I can hit things just right to fill an unmet need in the romance market.

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We're Alive has Romance?

We're Alive: A Zombie Survival Story

My brothers and sister have been on the We're Alive bandwagon for awhile now. Not since 2009, but at least since last year.

I knew about it, but hadn't started listening yet, except for what I overheard coming from my sister's room.

Went to see my grandparents last week, and on the way up and back we listened to We're Alive. It's official. I'm hooked.

Being a romance writer, naturally one thing jumped out immediately: the budding romance between Saul and Lizzie.

I'm still in season one, so I have no idea how it all plays out. But I'm really liking it. It's very real, has a nice progression, isn't lust in disguise, and has them actually interacting as people. It's refreshing.

At this point I'm also pulling for Michael and Riley. And for where I'm at, for Michael to not be dead!

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Caught In Amber

Image courtesy of Cathy Pegau

Cathy's a fellow SFRB member.

The description for Caught in Amber attracted my attention when it came out earlier this year. The combination of science and crime fiction isn't one you see very often.

Took me awhile to get around to it though. *coughcough* Sherrilyn Kenyon *coughcough* (I know what I want for Christmas. My very own Acheron! And Nykyrian Quiakedes for my birthday.)

It didn't disappoint! I loved the noir feel of the book. Nathan Sterling, the hero, hit most of my hero buttons. Protective, dedicated, a good guy.

Sasha was very unique and not once did I find myself skimming her POV scenes to get back to him. Kudos to Cathy for getting my attention and keeping it! Not an easy thing to do.

What stood out most to me was the religion element in the book, the Revivalists. It played a key part in Sasha's backstory and in the world building. As a person of faith myself I love seeing futuristic takes on religion and matters of faith. Some modern SF authors ignore faith and religion entirely, as if they have no concept of how important faith and religion have always been to humanity. There's no reason to think that won't continue in the future. I really enjoyed having this element present in the world building. It gave Nevarro's culture a true sense of completeness.

Caught In Amber is set in the same world as Cathy's other two books with Carina Press, but Amber is the only one I plan to read. F/F romance does less than nothing for me. I already have a long history of severe dislike of books without his POV, so I've no interest in exploring a romance without a hero. But if I was willing to read F/F I wouldn't hesitate. If Cathy ever writers another M/F romance in this world I will buy it.

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When A Romance Is Not A Romance

I'm a girl with strong opinions, and those opinions include the kind of books I read. I'm a romance writer, and a romance devourer. Because of that I have very specific things I want in a romance. The most important is hers and HIS point of view.

I've never been fond of first person point-of-view. It usually locks me into the head of the person I care the least about. I gravitate to books with strong male leads, and I prefer for the male lead to have the majority of the POV scenes. I know I'm in a minority on this and I deal with it. But I feel cheated when I start on something billed as a romance and I find out his POV isn't there.

This happened to me a couple weeks ago, and I'll name the book. Gabriel's Ghost by Linnea Sinclair. Intriguing set-up, loved the plot blurb, right up my alley, conspiracies aplenty, telepaths. And first person POV. For some reason I didn't bother to look at the first page when I left the library with it. Linnea's one of the queens of SFR so I thought I'd give it a fair shake.

Couldn't do it. The further I got into it the more cheated I felt. I didn't finish it. It was easy to abandon when The Darkest Kiss arrived at the library, and easy to abandon again when The Darkest Whisper arrived Monday morning. I flipped to the last chapter and read it. The revelation there made me really wish Sully's POV had been in it. But it wasn't. I probably won't read the second one, because it's the same MC in first person. I didn't connect with her at all. Honestly, she got on my nerves. I wanted to be in Sully's head and Ren's head. Not Chaz's. The third one is in third person, so I may give it a try.

Now, to contrast this with two third person series with one POV that I did enjoy. First up is Sara Creasy's Scarabaeus books. I knew they had a romantic sub-plot, but it was by no means a romance. The feelings Edie has for Finn could be removed and it's still a great book. I inhaled both books back to back. I bought them, in fact, and they will be read again.

I devoured The Books of the Raksura by Martha Wells and they were 100% his POV. There was a nice romance subplot and I stayed up too late for two weeks inhaling these. I finished the second one at 10:30 one night, hopped on Baen and was reading the third one in less than 10 minutes.

There are two important differences here. One, they're not billed as equal parts SF and romance, or with the Raksura books equal parts romance and fantasy. It's romantic SF and romantic fantasy. Two, it's third person. I adore third person. It's my favorite and it's what I write.

But I'm calling this When A Romance Isn't A Romance. For me it boils down to this: If you're telling me a book is a romance and all I get is her POV, it's not a romance to me. A romance is about two people falling in love. I want to see BOTH of them on that journey. Not just her. My bias toward the male POV is more fine with a romance subplot being told entirely through his POV than hers. Edie and Finn have begun to fade from my memory, but not Moon of the Raksura. Never once in any of those did I find myself wishing for Jade's POV (Moon's love interest).

When I started writing My Name Is A'yen I decided I was going to write it exactly how *I* wanted to read a romance. A'yen dominates the story. If I go by just his and Fae's POV scenes it's something like three to one in his favor. My secondary POV's are also male characters. Ditto for the second book. I'm in the third one now and, again, it's majority him. I have six POV characters. Only two are women.

Don't try and sell me something as a romance if it's only her POV. I couldn't care less about seeing it through her eyes. Even when reading a traditionally structured romance I miss his POV if I go too long without it and I'll start skimming hers so I can hurry up and savor his.

Call me weird, but there it is.

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In Which I Ruminate on Paranormals

http://sharetv.org/shows/angel

I'm really, really, REALLY late to the paranormal romance bandwagon. REALLY late. As in I read my first one two weeks ago.

There's a lot of talk in SFR circles about how we can become as popular as paranormals. It always comes down to the presence of the genre in other mediums, like TV.

So it got me thinking. How far back does the presence of paranormal romance on TV go? Pretty far back. Specifically I Dream Of Jeannie and Bewitched, sitcoms from the 60's. Sitcoms I watched as a kid. I remember when Elizabeth Montgomery died and Nick At Nite did a week-long marathon of Bewitched.

Then Joss Whedon came along with Buffy. I've never been a Buffy fan, but I love Angel. Especially starting in season two with Wesley, Gunn, and the semi-regular presence of Lorne, then Fred's arrival at the end of the season. The romantic in me loves Fred and Wesley's long-suffering romance. The hero lover in me loves everything about Angel. He's my perfect dark, tortured hero searching for redemption.

Other than Angel I've never been much into the whole vampire thing. My sister, on the other hand, is all about vampires. I gave her Varney The Vampyre for her birthday. She's all about zombies too.

Considering paranormal romance goes back further than most realize, with Jeannie and Samantha, it makes me wonder if SFR will ever have the pop cultural presence paranormal romance does. We don't have a Jeannie or Samantha, or even a Buffy. We could have if SciFi hadn't cancelled Farscape. Crichton and Aeryn were just getting started. There's never been a good romance arc on Star Trek either. About the closest thing we have is Fringe, but it's over now and was never really that much a part of pop culture.

What did I pick for my first introduction to paranormal? The Darkest Night by Gena Showalter. I plan to read the rest of the Lords of the Underworld, but at the moment I'm devouring Sherrilyn Kenyon's The League.

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To Romance, Or Not To Romance

When I first started writing seriously in 2007 (by that I mean with the idea of getting published someday) I initially balked at the idea of calling myself a romance writer. Part of that had to do with impressions I formed as a child, part of it had to do with the not so great things many Christians think when they hear the words "romance novel".

But as I've grown and matured as a writer--and a woman--it's been easier and easier to accept that yes, I do indeed write romance. And I'm quite proud of it. Writing a good romance is hard work.

I'm hard at work on the second book of what I fondly call "the space opera", mostly because I haven't found the right series title yet. The first one was clearly a romance. Hero and heroine meet, instant attraction, he wants to protect her though he knows his heart will never survive losing yet another person he loves. She's waiting, without even knowing it, for the man who will see her and need her, unlike every other man in her life. Their first kiss clocks in at 600-something words. They get married at the end of the book. It's a romance. Set in the future. That involves faster-than-light travel and oh, can't forget the aliens!


The second one, not so much of a romance. H&H from first book are the main H&H in this one, are still very much falling in love and dealing with the fallout of who he really is and how it changes their relationship. So it's very romantic. But it's not a romance according to the definition of a romance.

Last week I realized I missed it. The whole crafting a romance thing. Boy meets girl, boy gets girl, boy loses girl, boy gets girl back. I really miss it. A lot. There's nothing more amazing, for me, than watching two people discover each other.

So while it is with great sadness that I finish up The King's Mistress and say goodbye to A'yen and Fae as my leads, it is with great anticipation I start plotting To Save A Life and make Ro and Jasmine fall in love.

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