Celebrating Romance!
Thanks for having us here at Muse Interrupted! Today marks the release of our second historical romance, ALL HE DESIRES. One of the themes of the book is the healing power of love—how love can transform us and give us hope no matter what lies in our past. We are glad to be writing in a genre that honors connection, love, and the willingness to overcome obstacles that keep us apart. So today as we celebrate the release of our book, here are some thoughts celebrating Romance.
Romance affirms the power of the emotions, and the power of love.
Too much emotion is frowned on in our culture, especially where men are concerned. And love? Maybe because love is the most powerful emotion of all, it’s scary. Too capable of changing the world, changing who we are. It’s easier to shove love in a container, laugh at it or dismiss it as unrealistic. But romance is important. It moves us, gives us hope, lightens the load of our day-to-day lives where we have to deal with so many things that are sad, hard, and worrying.
Romance shows a positive and frank expression of female sexuality.
Not only are we talking about the big scary power of love, we’re letting it spill over into and inform physical desire. Modern romances are not afraid to describe the physical side of a relationship in a way that honors and celebrates feminine power. Despite the fact that we’re constantly bombarded by sexualized images, sex-plus-love and especially sex-plus-lasting-committed-relationship, doesn’t get shown a lot in popular media. Sex In The City was over when everyone hooked up with a mate. Do we really need the illusion that only those who aren’t in a ‘real’ relationship get to have hot hot lovin’? And how is that message going to play out after marriage? Romance novels in any subgenre show strong, loving relationships that will endure for years—and don’t shy away from the physical aspect of the relationship. Maybe that’s why, according to a study reported in Psychology Today*, romance readers make love 74% more often than those who don’t read romance. That’s a pretty persuasive reason to read romance!
Romance speaks to the heroine inside us all.
Romance novels acknowledge how hard it can be to get to that happy ending—we all know there’s going to be lots of conflict, trouble, and hardship along the way. But the heroines (and heroes) persevere. They stumble forward. They embrace the good times. And they win. They give us the heart and courage to keep going, even when things are looking their bleakest. Romances hold out hope, and they remind us that love and connection to other people is not weakness, but the best kind of strength.
So embrace your love of reading romance, celebrate the people in your life who are important to you, and honor that spark of hope and joy. All you need is love—and a good book.
*Harold Leitenberg and Kris Henning, “Sexual Fantasy,” Psychological Bulletin 117
WIN A BOOK! WIN TWO!
To celebrate our release day, we’re giving away a signed copy of ALL HE DESIRES, plus a copy of our first book, RITA-nominated PASSIONATE. A second winner will receive a copy of ALL HE DESIRES. Leave a comment below for a chance to win, and please tell us: How has reading Romance made a difference in your life?
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To read Anthea’s bio and the back cover copy of ALL HE DESIRES, visit yesterday’s post. To learn more about Anthea and her/his/their books, please visit their website!
How has reading romance changed my life? I think it’s allowed me permission to feel what I really feel, good or bad. The heart wants what the heart wants. I think as women we are in tuned to what we SHOULD do that we forget to ask ourselves what we WANT to do or be. I’ve tried to focus on that ever since breast cancer wormed it’s way into my reality two years ago. Clean and healthy now, that scare has made me re think my philosophy as well as my to do list.
Thank you for your blog – loved it. I find it interesting that in circles where romance frowned upon, those same people tune into songs that are glutted with insight about love and romance.
Reading has changed my life in being able to share a heroine’s journey, allow her strength to infuse me, to allow me to dream, to allow me to reach for my goals. Romance novels evoke emotional responses from readers and non-readers due to their powerful content. For me, books that delve into the complexities of relationships are the essence of story.
I wish your novels every success!
Sincerely,
Diana Cosby
Romance Edged With Danger
Hi everyone, and welcome to Anthea! Anthea, thank you for being so generous in giving away three books! That’s a first for my blog. 🙂
Excellent blog, too. I love Diana’s point about it being “okay” in our culture to listen to music about love, but women who read about love often get mocked. I see the same thing in movie reviews, usually for romantic comedies. How they are formulaic, etc. and everyone knows the guy and girl will get together in the end – ho, hum. But the reviewer needs to review the local movies, and so… In writing the review, the reviewer essentially mocks the people who might go to see it. Which I wouldn’t mind if the reviewer were just as picky about movies in other genres…
Great blog! Most stories I read have romance. When I finish them, it makes me feel good. Much better than meditating and cheaper than a massage.
I agree about the critics putting down romances. The reviewer for our local paper is awful. From his comments, I think he’s anti-women. I no longer read his reviews.
Inspiring stories! Thanks for sharing ~ And yes, romance is cheaper than a massage, unless you can get someone to rub your shoulders for you while you read… there’s a thought!
As far as romances being formulaic — aren’t sports even more so? You could argue that every baseball game has the exact same format, but the fun is in seeing how it plays out. Same as romance. 🙂
Feel free to ask any questions – we’ll pop in again later today. Time to go buy cookies and chocolate for our big hometown release-day party~
Anthea, I have a question – how do you like working with a co-writer? How do you divvy up the work?
Hi Anthea, romance had given me fun and gray hairs. Love to read it, love to write it. Love creating the perfect flawed couple and seeing them HEA. Most published romance is formulmatic, imo. Readers know what they can expect. I do miss the great romances of the 80s when author were allowed to be more historically accurate… heaven know a woman was an old maid at 18 in medieval england, but the publishers call the shots and old the tried and true like Lindsey, Deavereaux, etc can get away with writting it… even they seem to be giving in to the current moral code of the publishers lately. Truly accruate romance now is best found in history books… Of course I still love to read a good Romance… Wouldn’t be here otherwise.
Best of Luck and happy writing. Can’t wait to read your book.
Hi, Anthea! Great blog! I’m so excited for your second book release today, I hope you are enjoying all the accolades. Love the statistic, too, LOL, that should be reason enough for everyone to pick up a romance!
I hope to see you at your Orca Books signing, but if I can’t make it, know I’m thinking of you and wishing you all the best!
{{{{HUGS}}}
Chassily
Congrats on the release of your new book, Anthea!
Romance has always provided an escape from stress for me. It’s nice to hide out for awhile in a fictional world where there’s always a happy ending.
Romance has brought an amazing group of writers into my life – they have given me permission to reach for my dreams and supported me to no end along the way. If I hadn’t started reading romance, then reading more romance I probably wouldn’t have been inspired to start writing.
Best of luck with your new release – If I don’t win here I’ll for sure be putting it on my holiday wish list 🙂
I’m always happy to celebrate romance novels. 🙂 They remind me of why I love my dh – not that I need constant reminding. 🙂 Congratulations on your books!
Happy Release Day, Anthea. I think reading romances and the seeing all the HEAs is very uplifting and makes me feel like there’s someone for everyone.
Hi guys! Congrats on your second book!
I love romance for the fact that they give us hope. Life is hard enough as it is, we need to believe in that hea to keep us going!
All these fabulous comments are making us smile like crazy! Of course, release day is full of general rejoicing~
Colleen (and all) if you don’t win here, you have a bunch of other chances. We’re guest blogging all over the place in November, with multiple drawings to win books. The complete schedule is up at our website http://www.anthealawson.com
Cindy, to answer your question — luckily we have very different writing strengths. Lawson is a plotting pro, and is always pushing story questions and character motivation to the next level. Anthea is fearless about facing the blank page and putting words on it, so the work of writing together ends up going pretty smoothly~ (We talk about our process a bit more in our upcoming interviews, too!)
Before I discovered the romance genre, I was a closeted Disneyphile, trying desperately to cover up my hopeless romanticism with cynicism so I’d fit in with all the other cool kids. I thought I was all alone in my desperate desire for every heroine to meet her prince charming, fall in love and live happily ever after. Once I discovered reading romance, I found a whole new world of people who think just like I do. Hundreds of readers of all walks of life who want their dreaming hours to be filled with stories of hope, happiness and love. I was suddenly free to talk about HEAs in public! I adore the romance genre and wish I had discovered it sooner.
Congrats on the release day!!
Hm, a plotting pro, huh? I could use one of those!
I have been reading romance books for too many years to count. I’ve been married and divorced twice and frankly romance books probably gave me a better idea of romance than either of my marriages. Neither of them were what you would call romantic. I enjoy reading about the emotional bond between two people and the physical dynamics of the characters. I can get drawn into their lives and find myself feeling happy when they get their happily ever after. I love romance books. I will continue to read them as long as I can.
Thank you to Anthea Lawson for a wonderful blogging day. I hope you had a great release day, too!
Ciara Stewart won the copies of ALL HE DESIRES and PASSIONATE while Chassily won ALL HE DESIRES. Congratulations! Please look for an email from me in your inbox, so we can go about mailing you the books.
My next guest is Kensington historical romance author Diana Cosby, November 18th. Hope to see you again then. I keep a schedule of my guest bloggers in my sidebar (scroll down until you see Upcoming Guest Bloggers), so please mark on your calendar if there’s someone you don’t want to miss.
Thanks so much for having us as your guests, Cindy! The comments here have been wonderful. We only wish we had a dozen copies to give away~
Have a fabulous November!
You, too!