Seduction’s Canvas: Exclusive Excerpt
"He wanted more than anything to lean over her, take those pouty lips in between his own..."
Read & Win: Donna Grant
Read a special excerpt of Midnight's Kiss and enter the sweepstakes!
Read & Win: Zoe Archer
Read a special excerpt of Sweet Revenge and enter the sweepstakes!
Lightning Rider: Exclusive Excerpt
A 2,000 year age difference can't keep these time travelers apart...
First came Sookie’s suitors, those Vicious Vamps, those Dynamos of Darkness, Bill and Eric. The votes are still being tallied, but round 2 is about to commence. This time around we are proud to present the Shapeshifter Showdown.
In one corner we have “Sweetheart” Sam Merlotte and in the other corner, his opponent, Alcide “The Wild Werewolf” Heveaux. Remember the two winners of the weekend showdown will face each other in a King of True Blood final bout. So let your voice be heard!
John Hughes wrote the 1987 teen romance classic Some Kind of Wonderful in retaliation for the ending in Pretty in Pink that he was forced to use by studio executives.
In the original ending Hughes wrote, Duckie and Andie end up together. What-the-what is right! Test audiences did not like it and preferred Andie and Blane kissing in the parking lot. Apparently hot boy and pretty girl in pink make the storybook HEA. Not Beauty and the Dork.
Poor Duckie, you say. Bah! We would not have Some Kind of Wonderful if Duckie won. Come on, you know how much this movie made you cheer, sigh, and almost cry.
When I signed up for this gig I kind of had to chuckle a bit. Me, writing for a romance blog? I am not the most well-read Romance reader. I actually had to go and read the books I first blogged about. There is nothing wrong with the traditional romance novel; I’ve read a few, and even liked some. I just tend to gravitate toward Romantic Love Stories than the straight-up category or genre romance.
Why? Hmm, I’ve been thinking about that. And I really don’t want to get cyber-shot here so let me stew for a second…
John Hughes’ 1986 classic, Pretty In Pink, is part of pop-culture history. The fashion, the soundtrack, the eclectic characters, and IMO, the most important of all, the love story, is what makes this movie legendary.
It’s the perfect Teen Romance.
She’s poor. He’s rich. They go to the same high school where the preppy well-to-do kids rule the school. A girl like that doesn’t stand a chance, unless she’s in a John Hughes movie.
Jeffrey Stepakoff
The Orchard
Thomas Dunne Books/St. Martin’s Press, July 5, $22.99
Dylan Jackson can’t let go of a past that haunts him. Grace Lyndon can’t run fast enough from hers. When their worlds collide they are forever changed and no longer able to stay lost in what was, opening them up to the possibility of what could be…
Jeffrey Stepakoff is no stranger to fiction; his credits include the Emmy-winning The Wonder Years, Sisters, Major Dad, Disney’s Tarzan, and Dawson’s Creek (as co-executive producer). His debut novel, Fireworks Over Toccoa, was a tale about the power of destiny, fate, and true love. Stepakoff’s words weave into your soul, leaving their imprint forever. When you turn the last page of The Orchard, you will not be able to deny how much his words have changed you.
Romantic movies, when done right, can stay with you for a lifetime. The images are seared into you mind, heart, and soul. Just like the written word, an on-screen romantic scene has the power to take our breath away.
There are the staple scenes most refer to from movies such as When Harry met Sally, Jerry Maguire, Casablanca, Titanic, and many, many more.
The Princess Bride is one of my all-time favorite movies. There are so many memorable scenes. It’s a love story, a slap-stick comedy, and even a little action. And a little Fred Savage and Columbo. I’m surfing the interwebz for a particular scene and I keep clicking on all the others that made such an impression upon me.
“I am nothing special, of this I am sure. I am a common man with common thoughts and I’ve led a common life. There are no monuments dedicated to me and my name will soon be forgotten, but I’ve loved another with all my heart and soul, and to me, this has always been enough....”
Swoon...
Oh, Noah, be still my beating heart.
Nicholas Sparks’s The Notebook opens with an elderly Noah Calhoun living in a nursing home. He prepares for his daily ritual of reading from a notebook to his beloved wife Allie, who has Alzheimer’s. She does not know herself from day-to-day, let alone knows this stranger reading to her. But she listens and is comforted by their words. These handwritten pages tell a love story. When she asks him about the love of his life, he simply responds,
“She was my dream. She made me who I am, and holding her in my arms was more natural to me than my own heartbeat. I think about her all the time. Even now, when I’m sitting here, I think about her. There could never have been another.”
Tears well every time I read this. Sparks’s words take my breath away.
Before you see the movie, check out an excerpt of the book!
The gorgeous bride every girl has secretly been jealous of their entire lives. The hot groom every girl secretly wished asked them out first. The BFF Bridesmaid who’s secretly wished to be with hot groom since law school…but gorgeous bride snatched him up, right from under BFF.
Well, hello love triangle. You had me at bitch, hottie, and other girl.
If the love of your life were to be taken from you, what would you keep, save, or do to have a piece of them with you…always?
We sappy ladies keep all kinds of things from the great loves of our lives; it’s just what we do. I have love letters, photos, and movie stubs from my early years with the hubby. And believe it or not, guys can be nostalgic too. My man keeps a photo of me in his wallet, one taken from high school, our first year together. His knee-jerking romantic side sweeps me off my feet and leaves me utterly speechless (and it takes a lot to shut me up).
Fiction allows us to remember those heady feelings of first love, new love, and everlasting love. There are moments while reading a great love story where I just have to sit back, press the book against my chest, and exhale a weighty sigh.
Bad boys, bad boys,
What ya gonna do?
What ya goona do when they come for you?
Well, fan myself of course!
Sorry, I know I’ve just planted that annoying COPS theme song in your head. Let me see if I can take your mind off of that.
Frances “Baby” Houseman got brain freeze in the presence of a very naughty Johnny Cade. When introduced to him, all she could mutter was, “I carried a watermelon.”
.jpg "No One’s Getting Out of Here—Hotel Pamplona in Osaka, Japan")
Over the past few weeks, I polled writers and readers and asked a question that made the Catholic girl in me turn beet red (Oh, if Sister Saint Joan of Arc were to see me now; I just blessed myself for good measure).Anywho, this was the question:
What is the most outrageous setting for a sex scene you've read?
The answers will shock you. Well, not all of you, but I—inexperienced romance novel reader that I am—was flabbergasted. My eyes felt dirty after reading, seriously.
What would you say if your 12-year-old daughter wanted to read a book about a 16-year-old girl dating a 100-year-old virgin? What the what?
Or she wanted to read a highly popular series where there is blood, murder, love triangles, sneaking boys in at night, and getting married at eighteen. Exsqueeze me?
Still not sure what I am talking about?
Do you suffer from amnesia, have you been on assignment for National Geographic in the Antarctic, or are you a member of an Amish religious sect? No? Then you have no excuse not to know this supercouple. Like them or not, they have their place amongst the great romantic couples of literature.
Author Sara Gruen’s Water For Elephants is not exactly a title that makes you swoon. It sounds literary and artsy-fartsy, about something really sad like the mistreatment of animals or a drought in a third world country. But it’s way better than that—it’s actually about a guy who runs away and joins the circus during the Great Depression.
What the what? Hear me out.
The Depression Era grabs me like no other. Some people like Regency, Medieval, Georgian, or Ancient Rome; for me, it’s the Depression. The appeal for me is that it was when the power of the American spirit was tested like no other.
With all this love for a depression you’d think I’d have read a ton of fictitious tales depicting it. But I haven’t, so was stoked to find out about this one. Plus it’s also about the circus! Bonus! Schwing!
Run! They’re everywhere! You cannot escape!
Immortals . . .
Night Walkers . . .
Count Dracula . . .
Vampires . . .
The dead dude creeping over your bed . . .
Great crime fighting duos are timeless. Batman & Robin, Starsky & Hutch, Holmes & Watson, and the list goes on. But they’re not very romantic. Not to me anyway. So, who are the couples who detect by day and well, a-hem, you know what by night . . .
My all time favorite caped crusading couple is David and Maddy from the TV series Moonlighting. Here you have Maddy, former model turned private eye, and David, a schlep of a man down on his luck and needing a job. Their disdain for one another eventually turns into something more. Major ha-cha-cha.
More recently we have Castle and Beckett from the TV series Castle. Castle is a James Patterson-esque novelist and Beckett a hard nosed detective. The opposites attract formula works really well here. One is rich, one middle class, and both are pretty hot.
At 13 years old, Juliet’s got it all figured out. Yup, at the ripe old age of 13. At 13, I had New Kids on The Block and Bon Jovi posters hanging on my walls. Not to mention zits, braces, and over-teased hair. Thinking about those days, I knew it all too. Didn’t you?
There was a boy I was madly in love with. Madly, I tell you. We weren’t from the same neighborhood, so we’d meet up at the roller skating rink (that’s where we met originally, actually). It was our hangout, along with 20 or so other teens. When said love of my life, at the time, and I broke up . . . I may as well have been Juliet. I was heartbroken. Looking back on those emotions, however young and naïve, I have to say, I was in love. Young love, but love nonetheless.
“You down with OPP (Yeah you know me)/
Who's down with OPP (Every last vampy)”
O.P.P. is an acronym penned by the lyrical stylings of Naughty By Nature. In 1991, this little head boppin’ beat referred to infidelity. My phat rhyme refers to a pair that is naughty, but not by nature—more like the supernatural.
They are the dysfunctional duo of death, the New O’lins Nosferatu and two beautiful bloodsuckers. They are the Original Pasty Pair: Louis and Lestat from Anne Rice’s Interview with the Vampire.
A couple, a duo, a pair, a match, a Brangelina or a TomKat—you can’t have a Romance without them. It’s kind of a staple.
Technically, I guess one could romance themselves, but who wants to read about the single life of Kim Kardashian? (Besides Kim, of course.)
[If Kim could only find a man as good as Jamie Fraser . . .]
