Love Is in the Air...and in My Book

 

Our theme this month--love--was a piece o' cake for me today because last week, my new book, The Valentine Wager, released and I'm loving the response I'm getting from readers already! Look at this review from an Amazon reader:

5.0 out of 5 stars an absolute must-read!

Reviewed in the United States on February 1, 2022

"Like most of life, love happens whether you want it to or not." Kitt is looking for a fresh start after her last disastrous relationship. She didn't figure on meeting Ryker. They're hilarious together, especially their very first meeting during a traffic stop. And the chemistry is just oozing out their pores. She doesn't need a man in her life, though, and they enter a wager to keep each other in the friend zone. I loved seeing the Flaherty brothers (Kitt's cousins) and their families - a shameless plug to advise that you really need to read the Four Irish Brothers Winery book series. I loved seeing Ryker squirm - he's a hopeless flirt and struggles to remember that they're just friends. I want to be like Kitt when I grow up - she doesn't take crap from anyone. I'm so glad to be back reading in River's Edge, and truly looking forward to more in this series.

I'm so delighted that folks are reading and enjoying The Valentine Wager. If we need anything in this tired and broken world right now, it's love. Liz and I talk frequently about being romance authors, and do we wish we were writing some other kind of fiction. Yeah, sometimes I wonder if I maybe I should give something else a try. Romance doesn't always get the same respect from the reviewing and reading public as other genres such as women's fiction and political suspense and even horror stories. Cozy mysteries are a recent trend that readers seem to be really getting a kick out of and YA books full of angst and conflict sell well.

However, in this month of focusing on love, I gotta tell you--beautiful and touching, sexy or sweet, romance novels are a necessary part of our culture. From  Pamela: Virtue Rewarded, published in 1740 to... well, to The Valentine Wager, published last week, we are hungry for that happily-ever-after that so sooths our collective souls. Romance novels are what keeps us believing that love will win in the end, that there is someone for everyone, and that soulmates can and do happen. 

In her article for the Writer's Digest, Angela James sums it up perfectly, "Romance isn’t a joke. It’s an escape, it’s hope, it’s a community, a source of knowledge, a gathering of friends, an affirmation, it unites differences, offers representation, gives comfort, and provides a voice."

I love that, don't you? And I believe it with all my heart, so I think I'm going to keep writing romance, which makes the people in my head--those voices that beg to have their stories told--very happy because they are all as much hopeless romantics as I am. 

Happy Valentine's Day, mes amies! Stay well, stay safe, wear you mask, be kind, and this week, tell someone how much you love them.