Posted October 26, 2010 to Digital, Media Appearances, Print
I’m quoted in the New York Post today in an article about cover model Timothy Adams:
“It’s a lifestyle for me, but I give all the credit to my mom for making [me] this way,” he says, with a humility befitting one of his romance Romeos. But if his workout regimen could make many a fitness freak swoon, it’s his fantasy-inducing face that has romance readers’ loins quivering.
“This guy’s very special,” says Sarah Wendell, co-founder of the romance review site Smart Bitches, Trashy Books. “There are only a handful of people you see over and over again that become an icon in the romance-novel cover world.”
Wendell notes that publishers usually put Adams’ entire head on covers, a rarity in the “decapitated-male-model central of the romance novel aisle.” And with romance fiction sales totaling $1.36 billion in 2009, according to the Romance Writers of America, the choice of cover stud is crucial.
“The cover is a very big draw, especially for impulse shoppers,” says Wendell. “If you’re very lucky, you’ll get pectoral muscles that could shelter you under a rainstorm.”
I wish the caption hadn’t labeled him a “professional beefcake,” as clearly Adams works very hard at his job and at staying in shape.
What floored me? This man is 43 years old! He can climb 183 flights of stairs in a single hour and leap tall bicycles in a single bound and he is 43? I need to go work out. That is awesome – way to go, sir.
Posted August 09, 2010 to Digital, Media Appearances, Print
Deirdre Donahue is one of my favorite USA Today reporters. Whenever she covers any subject tangentially related to romance, I know she’s going to do a fair job, and not just slam the genre out of hand. She’s a romance fan herself, and her articles about the genre have always made me happy – especially when she includes me in them!
Today, she’s published an article about the surge in popularity of Amish-set romance: Romance novels set in Amish country are growing apace:
“It’s a huge, huge, huge trend,” says romance blogger Sarah Wendell, co-author of Beyond Heaving Bosoms: The Smart Bitches’ Guide to Romance Novels….
And that low-tech lifestyle creates a small-town atmosphere, which has deep appeal for readers who may find Wi-Fi-only connections emotionally isolating. “Even within your own neighborhood, you feel alone,” says Jane Little of the influential romance blog Dear Author. In an Amish inspirational, “we’re all one big family,” she says.
“Here you have this agrarian society that is closed to outsiders right in the middle of the Northeast,” says Wendell. “It’s both historical and contemporary.”
I reviewed an Amish-set book a few months ago, Cindy Woodsmall’s The Hope of Refuge, and gave it a C. The themes were fascinating but the religious revelations came far, far too easy.
I don’t think the Amish fascination will decline any time soon, though it eventually will. As complex and connected yet distant as our lives are now, revisiting that type of simplicity in fiction is a curious and compulsive indulgence for many readers.
Tags: pop culture, usa today
Posted August 05, 2010 to Digital, Media Appearances
I’m over at SheKnows.com giving a hot pile of summer reading – all romance, of course. If you’re looking for something to read, how about 5 Sizzlin Romance Reads for Summer Digital books, print books, historical books, contemporary – they’re all in there.
Romance is often dismissed as mindless dreck with predictable plots, but really, the best of romance is far from mindless and silly. Each of these books — and many others — feature savvy, sharp women, and stories that won’t let go of you.
So they are perfect for a hot, sunny day when you want to relax and escape for a few hours to find your own happily ever after.
Tags: awesomesauce, sheknows
