marriage

Wednesday News: Bestseller lists gamed; Digital growth flat; Modern marriages

Wednesday News: Bestseller lists gamed; Digital growth flat; Modern marriages

Update: Amazon warns Apple users to NOT update the Amazon App. It is deleting books and resetting entire libraries. Leslie and Ben and Liz and Criss: NBC Comedies On Modern Marriage – I watch neither 30 Rock nor Parks & Recreation. Well, let me clarify. I have watched some episodes of 30 Rock and maybe(…)

The Enduring Appeal of The Small Town Romance

The Enduring Appeal of The Small Town Romance

Who doesn’t love a small town Romance? Given Jane’s observation in her 2011 RWA wrap-up that small towns remain very popular, apparently a lot of readers do. Given the comments to that post and various lamentations from readers online, there are many readers who absolutely despise the small town Romance. While all genre devices have(…)

REVIEW: 666 Park Avenue by Gabriella Pierce

REVIEW: 666 Park Avenue by Gabriella Pierce

Dear Ms. Pierce, I’m a big fan of Gossip Girl and Pretty Little Liars — the television shows at least. We’re all allowed a few guilty pleasures, right? When HarperCollins offered this book to us at Dear Author and called it Gossip Girl meets Charmed, how could I resist? When her parents died in an(…)

REVIEW: Wild Romance: A Victorian Story of A Marriage, A Trial, and A Self-Made Woman by Chloë Schama

REVIEW: Wild Romance: A Victorian Story of A Marriage, A Trial, and A Self-Made Woman by Chloë Schama

Dear Ms. Schama: I approached Wild Romance: A Victorian Story of A Marriage, A Trial, and A Self-Made Woman with appreciation and excitement at the possibility of an academic study of cultural history crossing over to popular contemporary readership. The volatile story of Theresa Longworth's secret marriage to an Irish peer and subsequent battle to(…)

Is There an Irredeemable Trait?

In Linda Howard's book All the Queen’s Men, Louis Ronsard plays the villian.   He’s a wealth arms dealer who is portrayed as completely amoral.   He is targeted as the middleman who sells stolen arms to terrorists. Ronsard was a shadowy Frenchman who gave his allegiance to no one group; he was the conduit, however, for(…)

California Supreme Court Rules Same Sex Marriage Constitutional

Today the California Supreme Court’s decision dropped on the constitutionality of a same sex marriage ban. Specifically, the court addressed this question: The question we must address is whether, under these circumstances, the failure to designate the official relationship of same-sex couples as marriage violates the California Constitution. The Court found that the “right to(…)

Mildred Loving’s Legacy: Everyone in Love Deserves to the Right to Marry

Mildred Loving was the female half of the seminal court case Loving v. Virginia wherein the Supreme Court found anti-miscegenation laws unconstitutional. She passed away on May 5, 2008. She never intended to be a political figure or stand for anything but when confronted with not having the right to marry Richard Loving, she and(…)

REVIEW: A Wedding in Paris by Bretton, Ferrarella and Myers

REVIEW: A Wedding in Paris by Bretton, Ferrarella and Myers

Ladies, Who doesn’t enjoy reading about a wedding? Especially one in Paris? Or the romantic city of Paris as you all felt compelled to repeat several times in each story just to make sure we got it. I got it though I did wonder if some French board of tourism had bribed you all to(…)

REVIEW:  A Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion

REVIEW: A Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion

Dear Ms Didion, I found your account of your first year after the sudden and tragic death of your husband, all while dealing with your critically ill daughter’s many admissions to various hospitals, to be deeply moving yet in some ways offsetting and disjointed. I guess that’s due to intermixing the two narratives in a(…)

REVIEW: Mozart’s Wife by Juliet Waldron

Dear Mrs. Waldron, After reading your latest book last year (Independent Heart), I had to wait for the publisher to reset the type on Mozart’s Wife before it was available in paperback form. It’s not a romance book but does tell the love story of Mozart for his darling little wife and of Stanzi Marini(…)