Marlene H.

  • Romantic Wednesdays: Paranormal New Orleans

    If you’ve ever walked the streets of New Orleans, you recognize that there is something beautiful and decadent and just plain eerie about the place. New Orleans is a city where you can feel the past walk beside you; its history creeps in between the cracks of its sidewalks and seeps along the alleyways of… Continue reading

  • Romantic Wednesdays: Geeks in Love, or, Talk Nerdy to Me

    We all have an image in our minds when someone mentions the words “geek” or “nerd”. Someone socially awkward, but technically adept, someone who knows a lot about something very obscure, and possibly even science fictional, but is clueless about the social niceties. Usually a hero with a difficult time reaching a happy ever after… Continue reading

  • Romantic Wednesdays: Firefighters are HOT!

    They say that everybody loves a man (or a woman) in uniform. Combine that with the heart-stopping heroism of people who put their lives on the line to fight fires and you have the recipe for either heartwarming or incredibly hot romance, and sometimes both at once! The Fireman Who Loved Me by Jennifer Bernard… Continue reading

  • Romantic Wednesdays: Sports Romance

    We all know that there are seasons for every sport, even if they have started to blur a bit (I swear that basketball and hockey seasons used to be over by April, once upon a time). But with sports-themed romances, the season never ends! In Jaci Burton’s Play-by-Play series she manages to make every single… Continue reading

  • Romantic Wednesdays: Love and Mummies

    Amelia Peabody Emerson liked nothing better than to camp for a season in a nice dry tomb while her husband excavated a nearby site. After all, that was how she met him! Crocodile on the Sandbank introduces us to Amelia Peabody, a Victorian bluestocking who is roughly 30 years old, and who absolutely refuses to live the… Continue reading

  • Romantic Wednesdays: Putting the Steam in Steampunk

    First of all, what is this steampunk, anyway? Think of it this way. If the kind of technology in Jules Verne’s Journey to the Center of the Earth or Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea actually worked, if all those marvelous Victorian steam-powered machines, and we used airships like the Hindenburg instead of airplanes, well,… Continue reading

  • Romantic Wednesdays: Bluestockings in Romance

    Not all the heroines in historical romances love going to balls and attending soirees. There are some that prefer the quieter things in life; like reading a book. There have always been women (at least in the pages of romances) who would rather be reading! Bluestockings were educated, intellectual women. Romances featuring bluestockings as heroines are… Continue reading

  • Romantic Wednesdays: Military Romance

    They say that everyone loves a man (or woman) in uniform. So much so that there are whole platoons of romances with military or ex-military heroes and heroines. Enough to make military romances a special force in romance of their very own. If you’d like to see a romance featuring those currently serving, you can’t… Continue reading

  • Romantic Wednesdays: Paranormal romance vs. urban fantasy

    Paranormal Romance and Urban Fantasy are like kissing cousins. Considering all the vampires and werewolves involved, maybe that should be biting cousins. The big difference between Urban Fantasy and Paranormal Romance is usually where the focus is placed in the story. It’s not that Paranormal Romances can’t include an other-than-human hero or heroine, or that… Continue reading

  • Romantic Wednesdays: Time Travel Romance

    The great thing about time travel romance is that I can go back to it again and again. And I probably will! There are oodles of different versions of time travel romances, and time travel stories in general. One variation that incorporates very cool elements of romance and conspiracy are time travel stories involving organizations that… Continue reading

  • Romantic Wednesdays: Small Town Romances With Local Flavor!

    There are many reasons why small town romances are so appealing. You don’t just get a standard happily-ever-after; you also get a chance to fall in love with a nice town while the couple falls in love with each other. Continue reading

  • Romantic Wednesdays: Romance, with a little rocket fuel

    Sometimes I like my romances with a touch of rocket fuel. To put it another way, I like science fiction romance, or SFR. I’ve loved it since the original Captain Kirk chased his first alien around the Enterprise way back when, and my tastes probably aren’t going to change any time soon, or on any… Continue reading