Romance and Me: How I Discovered the Romance Genre

Hey Everyone!

Welcome to our newest bi-weekly series post: the Romance and Me posts. Though I think the name speaks for itself here is a short introduction what these posts will be about: anything and everything related to romance! Yep! We’ll talk about how we discovered the genre, why we read romance novels, discuss the frequent themes in romance novels, the various subgenres, share some romance recommendations, discuss our pet peeves, covers, etc. (If there is a topic you would like us to cover, please feel free to let us know either in a comment or by sending us an e-mail with Romance and Me in the subject. Thank you!) And now let the fun begin.

For the very first Romance and Me post I’d like to share with you how I discovered such a thing as the romance genre existed and how I became a fan.
I have to …

Interview: Vivian Arend + Giveaway

Please join me in giving a warm BLI welcome to Vivian Arend who has delighted readers with her numerous contemporary and paranormal erotic romance novels. Vivian’s most recent contemporary publication is Turn It Up, the second story in her Turner Twins series. Vivian also has written a new series of paranormal erotic short stories Pacific Passion, the first book Stormchild is now available in e-format, Stormy Seduction will be available April 12th, and Silent Storm, on May 17th from Samhain Publishing.

Lea: Welcome to Book Lovers Viv, it such a pleasure to chat with you today!

Thank you for inviting me to drop in!

Viv can you please tell us a bit about yourself?

Viv: I am a voracious reader, who has become an obsessive writer, and I’m currently traveling in a 24’ camper with my hubby and 15 …

New Releases: March 21 – 27

Seduce Me in Dreams by Jacquelyn Frank

From the New York Times bestselling author of the Nightwalkers and Shadowdwellers series, Seduce Me in Dreams begins a sexy new futuristic series featuring an elite group of military heroes.

Dark. Mysterious. Sensual. When Bronse Chapel, the commander of a specialized unit of the Interplanetary Militia, begins to dream about a beautiful and exotic brunette, he wants to dismiss it as being induced by lack of sleep . . . or perhaps lack of sex. But his instincts tell him it’s something different, something far more dangerous.

Ravenna is the leader of the Chosen Ones, a small group of people from her village born with extraordinary powers. She doesn’t know that draws her to Bronse’s dreams night after night, but she senses that he and his team are in jeopardy. Ravenna can help him, …

Explore This! La Jolla (San Diego, California)

Today, we are heading west and getting ready to “Hang Ten”. And this is kind of exciting for me because, before today, I had never heard of La Jolla. So, why am I featuring it? Well, the inspiration for today’s locale comes from Susi Sunshine; she recommended La Jolla to me as it was the setting for Jill Sorenson’s book, Crash Into Me. With elements in the book including famous surfers, romance, and murder, it looks like this is the perfect place for it all to happen.

La Jolla, nicknamed Jewel City, is in the northwestern part of San Diego. It is called “affluent” and one look at these pics will reinforce its nickname and its desirability to the rich and famous.

A hotel in the city.

Around the Bookish World: News Week-in-Review

This week in the blogosphear we have Goodreads questionable policy and trashtalking galore for Dabwaha which has commenced this week in style. (Note this year has been brutal and if anyone follows Dabwaha on twitter – I apologize with the penis pics and the altered tweets which has led to cries of foul cheating!) But good luck to everyone who has entered Dabwaha!

Lauren Dane has highlighted another issue with Goodreads. She noticed that more and more star ratings are given to books that have hardly been written, and contacted Goodreads about this issue because it wasn’t realistically reflective of a book’s ranking. Goodreads replied with the following:

“Thanks for writing in with your feedback. While I can understand your frustration, it is not a requirement that …

My Wishlist: Must Reads Edition

Hello again.. Its great to be back here to give you all lil glimpse of what I desperately craving for this week’s wish list post.

Can’t believe how fast time has been passing by. Can’t believe March is half way over with. I hope you all are doing great and I hope for those enjoying their spring break are being safe yet having a wonderful time off.

So anyway here are the top of my TBR book pile list:

Christine Feehan’s Savage Nature (Leopard Series #5)
Penguin Group (USA)
April 26th 2011
Purchase Info and Links: Amazon, B&N, Book Depository, Goodreads

Book Description:

When Saria Boudreaux finds a dead body in the Louisiana bayou near her home, her first instinct is to go to the police. But there’s a problem: it looks like the …

Genres 101: Today’s Lesson "Punk"

Today, I’m going all out Punk…I’ve dyed my hair green and spiked it, now we’re really ready to rock! Oh, wait….wrong Punk. In our last talk, I mentioned “Splatterpunk” which was a subgenre of Horror, but there is a separate part of the Speculative Fiction category that encompasses many other Punk types. It seems it started out with the term “Cyberpunk“, thought up by Bruce Bethke in the early 1980’s, which blends cybernetics with the punk music of the originating time. It’s essence is about a type of technology that has become highly evolved, for example blending humans with computers and usually occurring in a dystopian society. The first thing that comes to mind here are those scary, crazy Cyborgs in Star Trek….Yes, I’m a trekkie and a trekker (and I know the difference, lol). There are a bunch of movie versions of this genre …

New Releases: March 14-20, 2011

Steel by Carrie Vaughn

It was a slender length of rusted steel, tapered to a point at one end and jagged at the other, as if it had broken. A thousand people would step over it and think it trash, but not her.

This was the tip of a rapier.

Sixteen-year-old Jill has fought in dozens of fencing tournaments, but she has never held a sharpened blade. When she finds a corroded sword piece on a Caribbean beach, she is instantly intrigued and pockets it as her own personal treasure.

The broken tip holds secrets, though, and it transports Jill through time to the deck of a pirate ship. Stranded in the past and surrounded by strangers, she is forced to sign on as crew. But a pirate’s life is bloody and brief, and …

Around the Bookish World: News Week-in-Review

Welcome to this week’s news post which I almost forgot to write, because for me it has totally zoomed past for me. This week its been pretty quiet although last weekend was pretty eventful with a new brouhaha online about authors and reviewing again and a mysterious non existent YA Mafia group. This has reignited the debate again about who can and shouldn’t review books and I suspect this issue will arise again and again in a different way and in a different genre – although it could be Ninja mystery writers lurking in the wings when the next hoopla happens. But for a good summary and insights, check out Dear Author’s post as well as Katiebabs and Smexybooks write ups.

This actually links up to Goodreads implementing a new rule about authors responding to negative …

Bookish Rants or Raves: What About YA?

Y.A. Books are everywhere these days! From “Twilight” and “Harry Potter” getting to “The Hunger Games” and “I Am Number Four”, Y.A. is everywhere and personally, the sub-genre that most attracts me is Paranormal Y.A. or Sci-Fi Y.A.

To be quite honest I am not that familiar with “regular” Y.A. novels and series like “Perfect Chemistry” and I tend to get tired of Y.A. faster than I used to. I think I have just been enjoying Adult novels more and I try to go back and forth between them so I don’t too tired of either.

However, I do have a few Paranormal Y.A. series that I can’t get enough of, like: Rachel Vincent’s “Soul Screamers”, Richelle Mead’s Y.A. Books, Holly Black’s “Curse Workers” and Julie Kagawa’s “Iron …