I love historical romance.\u00a0The news around us is so very grim. Our economy has been down for so long that it keeps dragging us down with it.\u00a0 So many people are unemployed, underemployed or working two or three jobs to\u00a0survive. The worse today gets, the more tempting historical romance looks.\u00a0 In trying times historical romance is an oasis from\u00a0the desert of reality.\u00a0\u00a0I get that. I really, really get that.\u00a0<\/p>\n
But you know what I think too many people forget, overlook or don't realize?\u00a0Contemporary romance done right provides the same kind of escape.\u00a0It may provide an even better escape. Think about it.\u00a0 We can see our world, our time in new and exciting ways by reading contemporaries.\u00a0\u00a0Contemporaries remind us that times can get better, will get better.\u00a0\u00a0They can even\u00a0inspire us to change some things we're\u00a0doing in order to make our reality a better place to live.<\/p>\n
So, let's hear it for\u00a0contemporary romance. \u00a0<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
But wait - there's an important thing to remember about contemporaries.\u00a0 While they are set in the time\u00a0we live in - or in a year close to\u00a0our time - under the virtual covers, our era is apt to look a little different too.\u00a0 That's because whatever slice of life a contemporary is presenting - it's that slice on steroids and as seen through the eyes of the author.\u00a0 For example, John Grisham (mostly) writes legal thrillers.\u00a0 He's a lawyer, so he has the credentials to do that.\u00a0 But, I've got to tell you, the trials you'll see in a courtroom won't be anywhere near as thrilling as the ones you read about in a Grisham story.\u00a0 The trials, the law firms, the lawyers you find in a Grisham tale are those he created and they're playing out their tale in today's world, done Grisham's way.<\/p>\n
An author of any genre in any time is always (always, always) free to write the world of their book their way.\u00a0 Perhaps Kennedy was never assassinated or perhaps the book is set in a small Southern town famous for an epic Civil War battle that only occurred in the author's imagination.\u00a0 You may read a book set in your home town or your home state and come accross\u00a0events,\u00a0places or\u00a0sets of beliefs or values that you don't even recognize. Amongst\u00a0an author's most important tools are the words - What If<\/em>.<\/p>\n Like Grisham, I'm a lawyer. \u00a0And I've written a couple of contemporaries and the one on the way, my WIP (work in progress) is a contemporary.\u00a0 Unlike Grisham, I write romance. So my contemporaries deal with what happens when love and the law intersect.\u00a0 My first contemporary, E-mail Enticement<\/a>, is set in my home town of Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. \u00a0E-mail is the tale of a billionaire who falls in love with an almost legal young girl. In the course of their relationship he sends her a number of emails. When things go wrong the emails are used as the basis for\u00a0felony criminal charges against the billionaire.\u00a0 Then he has to defend himself after\u00a0the lady disappears and their whole courtship is put on trial.\u00a0 The book takes you through the whole criminal trial, but I promise you, it's a lot more exciting than any you'd find going on at your local courthouse. \u00a0<\/p>\n My second contemporary is Griffin's Law<\/a>, which is set in Columbia, South Carolina, at the law school that I attended. By the way, that law school is a\u00a0fabulous institution and if you're looking for a legal education, you can't do better.\u00a0 But I digressed. I do that.\u00a0 Griffin's is the tale of a law school professor who is a famous local lothario and the McDreamy fantasy of\u00a0his female students.\u00a0 He's vowed never to get involved with a student, but what happens when never comes?\u00a0 The book is written as a tribute to Grey's Anatomy.\u00a0 It doesn't feature the setting, characters or plots of Grey's, but hopefully it captures the mood, the ambiance of that series.<\/p>\n And then there's my WIP.\u00a0 It's tentatively titled The Office Ink Spells Murder<\/em>. And it's also set in my home town of Myrtle Beach.\u00a0 Can you tell that I love the Grand Strand\u00a0area?\u00a0 Think Cain & Abel as Jed & Mark, attorney brothers who\u00a0practice in a family firm. The firm has a rule forbidding dipping\u00a0pens in the office ink.\u00a0 It was never a problem until Gemma, a new associate gets hired.\u00a0 Mark gets\u00a0murdered and Jed\u00a0is a likely suspect.<\/p>\n My books are my children.\u00a0 I love them all equally but in different ways. If you're a parent, you understand that statement completely.\u00a0 And like any parent, I worry about sending my books out into the world.\u00a0 I don't think E-mail or Griffin's has gotten a fair shake because people are buying so much historical romance to fight the bad stuff going on outside their windows or right in their living rooms.\u00a0 So I worry about sending poor little Office Ink <\/em>out to the virtual world.\u00a0 Will readers ever give contemporaries the same consideration they give historicals?\u00a0 Will they ever learn that the world of the contemporary romance can be a darned enticing place?<\/p>\n I hope so.\u00a0 I really, really hope so.\u00a0<\/p>\n Like my historicals, my contemporaries are written from my unique over-the-top point of view.\u00a0 So even if you find other contemporaries to be too much like real life and therefore too dull - I promise you that you won't find mine\u00a0to be anything less than a roller coaster ride that soars over the top of love.\u00a0<\/p>\n Even if your real life these days isn't what you'd like it to be - or perhaps, especially if it isn't - give my contemporaries a try.\u00a0 They'll help you see that our era may be\u00a0far more\u00a0exciting and enticing than the regency period - provided you view it from over the top.<\/p>\n So, please, check out E-Mail Enticement <\/a>and Griffin's Law.\u00a0<\/a>\u00a0Keep checking\u00a0for Office Ink\u00a0which will be boogling out to the virtual shelves in the next month to 6 weeks.\u00a0\u00a0Yeah, Regency England,\u00a0the Scottish Highlands and the Old West were fun time periods. But from my point of view, today's a petty quacking place too!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I love historical romance.\u00a0The news around us is so very grim. Our economy has been down for so long that it keeps dragging us down with it.\u00a0 So many people are unemployed, underemployed or working two or three jobs to\u00a0survive. The worse today gets, the more tempting historical romance looks.\u00a0 In trying times historical romance ...continue reading \"Today’s A Pretty Quacking Place Too\"<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[4],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quackingalone.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1820"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quackingalone.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quackingalone.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quackingalone.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quackingalone.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1820"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/quackingalone.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1820\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1825,"href":"https:\/\/quackingalone.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1820\/revisions\/1825"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quackingalone.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1820"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quackingalone.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1820"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quackingalone.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1820"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}