LOVE STORIES! My favorite love stories in fiction span a variety of genres and authors. But there are some common threads. I like love stories that feature a heroine who has to shed her illusions to find love. Most of my favorites aren’t what we’d technically classify as romance novels. The stories are often broader.
As a public service, here’s a list of books for your global pandemic, self isolation reading — you are reading more now, aren’t you? They’re books I’ve enjoyed recently (though I wasn’t yet in self isolation). Time traveling, sister stories, romance, and mystery When We Believed in Mermaids by Barbara O’Neal — 5 stars.A poignant story of sisterhood and reunion, this well-told story of separated sisters moved back and forth between the present and the…
I’m a born rebel, so when I set goals as a NaNoWriMo rebel, I pick the ones that fit with my writing habits. These are habits born of observing my best writing periods and replicating what worked, forgetting what didn’t. For me, as a National Novel Writing Month fan, word counts don’t work. For me, daily writing works. But you may be a different kind of writer. How can you use NaNo to your advantage?…
I bought Time After Time by Lisa Grunwald because it was listed on Amazon under Time Travel Romance. I’d say Amazon should invent a new category: Magical Realism Romance. This captivating love story, set in a meticulously detailed historic Grand Central Station, itself an otherworldly but actual setting, is in a class by itself. Nora and Joe live two decades apart. Following a train accident, Nora exists in a liminal realm, but they meet through…
It’s always thrilling and inspiring for this author to read reader reviews of The Renaissance Club. Here’s a sample harvest of comments that delighted me and made me want to dig in and finish the next in this Timegathering series of magical realism fiction! Thanks to the 44 readers who thoughtfully left comments on Amazon. If you’ve read the book and want to add a review, click on the link above. If you haven’t read…
Magical realism in women’s fiction gives the reader and writer a broader canvas of possibilities. When you’re reading about women and their relationships (the broad definition of women’s fiction), elements of magic provide visual ways to describe a character’s feelings, frame internal events, and create adventures. Magical realism in women’s fiction can be small touches or big events, such as time travel. I used two magical realism elements in my novel The Renaissance Club ,…