Romance and Me: The National Clichés Part I

Hi Everyone!

Today we’ll be talking National Clichés! What are those you ask? Glad you asked! 😉 In (romance) novels there are some recurring tropes/acrs, like the Italian playboy, Greek magnate and Southern cowboy whose drawl will make the heroine melt. So I was curious to know: are these things accurate or purely romanticized? And who better to ask than people from those countries? So join us as we tackle some of these national clichés, and if you have some questions for our international Book Lovers Inc. team just leave them in a comment.

Jackie: I’ve been trying to think of any Canadian clichés I may have read about in books but while nothing specific comes to mind as far as the actual books go, one thing always pops up: Canadians are very nice. Plus we apologize for everything. I’m not sure how true this is exactly, …

Romance and Me: The Arranged Marriage/Fake Engagement Trope

Hi Everyone!

I have already told you about some of my favourite tropes, like the friends to lovers or enemies to lovers ones, but I would be remiss if I didn’t mention another one of my all-time top favourite tropes: the arranged marriage/marriage of convenience/faked engagement one. Yep. It may sound like a mouthful, but they are SO delicious 😉

Arranged marriage tropes are usually found in historical romances. I was introduced to them through some Pride and Prejudice fanfiction where Lizzie had married Mr. Darcy while still hostile towards him, but usually he was unaware of her feelings and when he realized that his wife hated him after he got over his heartbreak they tried to make their marriage work by getting to know and respect each other. And the more similar stories I read, the more I craved. And …

Romance and Me: My Favourite Moment in a Romance

Hi Everyone!

I’m sure with such a title I caught your attention and you are on pins and needles to learn what is that thing/moment/detail that I love the most in romances, the one thing I am looking forward to when opening the book 😉

I’ll tell you that while I really enjoy seeing how the author writes that first scene when the hero and heroine finally meet, it’s not that. (Btw if you want to read a truly memorable and unforgettable first-meeting-scene check out the one between Ali and Luke in Jill Shalvis’ It Had to Be You). But back to our topic.

It’s not even the first kiss. Sure once I meet the hero and heroine and see the sparks flying and how potent their chemistry is I can’t wait for them to finally lock lips and see all that …

Romance and Me: Discrimination Based on Name

Hi Everyone!

You all know that I’m an equal opportunity reader when it comes to romance: I read anything from contemporary to historical, erotic to inspirational, sci-fi to paranormal. I keep an open mind and I’m always up to expand my reading horizons by experimenting with different sub-genres. So with that disclaimer out of the way I can make my confession: despite my tolerant and open-minded reader beliefs I sometimes discriminate books/stories/characters based on names.

And I don’t mean the cutesy and at times over the top names of the town/place the story is set in, like a contemporary romance being set in the small town of Love, or Promise Harbor or a historical romance taking place in Harmony Creek or Temperance Manor. No, those just receive an eyebrow twitch, but they don’t disturb me too much to make me stop reading the book.

Romance and Me:The Truth About Cravings

Hi Everyone!

It is a truth universally acknowledged that cravings are real and they don’t only exist during pregnancies. Oh no. I bet that you all have at one time had the urge to snack on something, but today I would like to talk to you about book cravings. Cravings related to reading. When you are “just in the mood for” a particular trope (yes, heroine won in a card game historical romance), or the hero having a certain job (give me some fire-fighter hunks), or a setting (anyone want wedding romances?).

It happens to me all the time. When I finish a book and I’m at that moment of deciding what to read next I ask myself: what am I in the mood for? And sometimes it’s just general guidelines like I want a historical romance to shake things up a bit after the 4 or …

Romance and Me: The Horror of the Episode Novels

Hi Everyone!

You might have encountered this new trend that seems to be spreading recently, namely that a story is told in several shorter instalments. These are not “series” in the classic sense of the term, where the individual books were full-length 300 or more pages long, no in these new episode-novels the individual instalments are between 25-120 pages usually and end with (often cruel) cliffhangers to entice the reader to pick up the next instalment.

Many recent erotica stories used this form like Beth Kery’s Because You Are Mine series or Maya Cross’ brand new Alpha Group books, and even Eloisa James released her latest historical romance With This Kiss in this format.

Many readers object to this new trend because 1) the story or the different storylines don’t get resolved at the end of the individual episodes, 2) they have to suffer …

Romance and Me: Healing the Mad Hero

Hi Everyone!

In the past week I have come across and read two historical romances featuring “mad” heroes which made me consider this, in my opinion, not too frequently explored trope.

In classic literature having a crazy wife/madwoman as a secondary character is quite common (like in Jane Eyre), but to have your hero or heroine suffering from a mental illness is quite difficult and challenging to pull off and not have them come off as unstable, crazy or plain scary.

But it seems that nowadays more and more historical romances explore the possibility of the hero producing some symptoms and episodes making him fear he is suffering from a mental illness, which is incapacitating him; and the heroine not giving up and trying to find a cure and heal him. I wasn’t aware that this was a recurring theme until I’ve read

Romance and Me: Discovering Amish Romances

Hi Everyone!

I wanted to let you in on what has been going in my life reading-wise in the past two weeks. I read Temptation by Kathryn Barrett, one of Entangled Publishing’s new releases, which is a contemporary romance featuring a modern heroine discovering life and finding love in an Amish setting*. I have to say that prior to this novel my knowledge of the Amish was very limited (my excuse is that living in Europe we don’t hear/learn about them much), I saw For Richer or Poorer with Kirstie Alley and Tim Allen when I was a teen, but that was about it.

So yes, Temptation opened a whole new world to me. (But before I get to that let me tell you what a wonderful, well-written, heart-warming yet sexy story it was, so make sure to pick …

Romance and Me: In Love with a Superhero

Hey Everyone!

For some time now I wanted to discuss superhero romances with you, because as always I would be grateful for any great recommendations 😉

Being an enthusiastic superhero fan is something of a more recent thing for me, I didn’t grow up reading superhero comics or watching cartoons featuring them (though I remember that when I went over to a guy friend’s birthday party in kindergarten we watched an episode of Spiderman). If I think hard when trying to pin point where my interest for superheroes started I go back to high school when I stumbled upon Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman. I LOVED how that show wasn’t just about the “boring science fiction/comic stuff” but featured interesting characters with relatable problems/thoughts/feelings and lots of humour, and most importantly I was a sucker for the developing romance between Lois and Clark …

Romance and Me: The Sports Edition

Hey Everyone!

Lately I’ve been on a special romance sub-genre kick: devouring sport romances!

I’m sure that you have come across one of those stories where the hero and/or heroine are athletes, and while I have always enjoyed reading about sexy hunks as heroes, lately I’ve discovered this new addiction of mine. Be it sexy football player like Dean Silverthorne in Candis Terry’s Any Given Christmas, or the hunky hockey players like those in Lily Harlem’s Hot Ice series or Rachel Gibson’s Chinooks Hockey Team series, the irresistibly gorgeous soccer captain in Scored by Lily Harlem or star pitcher Park Jones in Nora Roberts’ Rules of the Game (the very first sporty hero I’ve read about), I love them all!

I’m not a sport fanatic, when the Olympics, European or World Cup football …