What is Love?
Free books and writing romance
Writing
Who’s Your Valentine?
Since I started my fiction writing career, I’ve tried my hand at a variety of genres and had some success with every book, but the one area I’ve not dared to dabble in and probably won’t is romance. That doesn’t mean there aren’t romantic relationships in my writing. In my first novel, After It’s Over, Reece has an encounter with an old girlfriend right off the bat and two of the main characters become romantically involved, which is one of the linchpins for the story.
In my last thriller, The Agency, we have a bit of a love triangle with two different women showing interest in the main character. These relationships are a part of the story and dictate it’s direction. What you don’t find is the kind of long romantic descriptions you’ll see in a typical romance book, or the popular romantasy of the day. That’s probably something that won’t change with my stories. They’ll stick to a “just kisses” and “fade to black” structure.
Readers? What do you think about that? Do you care how much stories develop their romantic interests if it isn’t a romance novel? Let me know in the comments.
Historical Fiction
Early Reviews of Across the Shining Sea
All authors are suckers for good reviews of their books. It’s an easy way to make our day. (hint, hint) Here are two of the early reviews of Across the Shining Sea, still discounted for $3.99 for the month of February.
Thrillers
After It’s Over Audiobook Sample
The production is moving along on my first professional Audiobook. After It’s Over is on track for a March release. In the meantime, enjoy this sample.
Free Books
Fantasy
I know, I know…whoever made this graphic doesn’t know how to spell February. I promise, I do. :)
I think romance novels have their place as marital aids, and good ones even tell us something the authors believe to be true about relationships and communication, but if a story aspires to be more than a marital aid I prefer that the detailed descriptions stop with kissing or maybe even hand-touching. If the characters have concerns or regrets they can think or talk about them in the next scene.
Of course I know there are people who use marital aids for extramarital purposes. I also know that in the Internet there are people who search for "erotic" words and bombard sites where they find those words with nasty stuff. Even the porn's not the worst of it. Write about, say, knees and watch your computer fill up with images of disease conditions. I try to use even words like "hand" in compounds like "handwritten," to avoid attracting arthritis-related spam! The Internet has made some people whose language used to be quite salty into super-prudes.