Recent Book/Movie Connections – Which ones will you see?

Posted on March 7, 2012 by Regina Jeffers

THE IRON LADY (book The Iron Lady: from Grocer’s Daughter to Prime Minister by John Campbell)

Starring Meryl Streep, Jim Broadbent, Iain Glen

CORIOLANUS (book Coriolanus)

Starring Ralph Fiennes, Gerard Butler, Vanessa Redgrave

A SMILE AS BIG AS THE MOON (book A Smile as Big as the Moon by Mike Kersjes)

Starring John Corbett, Jessy Schram, Cynthia Watros

ALBERT NOBBS (book Albert Nobbs by George Moore)

Starring Glenn Close, Mia Wasikowska, Janet McTeer

WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT KEVIN (book We Need to Talk about Kevin by Lionel Shiver)

Starring Tilda Swinton, John C. Reilly, Ezra Miller

ONE FOR THE MONEY (book One for the Money by Janet Evanovich)

Starring Katherine Heigl, Jason O’Mara, Daniel Sunjatah

THE WOMAN IN BLACK (book The Woman in Black by Susan Hill)

Starring Daniel Radcliffe, Ciarán Hinds, Janet McTeer

BIG MIRACLE (book Big Miracle by Tom Rose)

Starring Drew Barrymore, John Krasinski, Kristen Bell

THE VOW (book The Vow: The True Events That Inspired the Movie by Kim and Krickitt Carpenter with Dana Wilkerson)

Starring Rachel McAdams, Channing Tatum, Jessica Lange

ACT OF VALOR (book Tom Clancy’s Act of Valor by Dick Couch and George Galdorist)

Starring Alex Veadov, Roselyn Sanchez, Nestor Serrano

DR. SEUSS’S THE LORAX

Voices of Danny DeVito, Zac Efron, Taylor Swift

THE BEST EXOTIC MARIGOLD HOTEL (book The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel by Deborah Moggach)

Starring Judi Dench, Bill Nighy, Maggie Smith

JOHN CARTER (based on the Edgar Rice Burroughs character)

Starring Taylor Kitsch, Lynn Collins, Willem Dafoe

GAME CHANGE (book Game Change by John Heilemann and Mark Halperin)

Starring Julianne Moore, Woody Harrelson, Ed Harris

MIRROR, MIRROR

Starring Julia Roberts, Sean Bean, Lily Collins

THE HUNGER GAMES

Starring Jennifer Lawrence, Josh Hutcherson, Liam Hemsworth

HEMINGWAY AND GELLHORN

Starring Nicole Kidman, Clive Owen, Robert Duvall

GREAT EXPECTATIONS

Starring Gillian Anderson, Douglas Booth, Ray Winstone

THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD

Starring Matthew Rhys, Tamzin Merchant, Freddie Fox

Which books are you anxious to see brought to film? I am waiting for Anna Karenina so I can watch Matthew Macfadyen again. I’ll also be checking out his portrayal of Jack the Ripper.

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Jonny Lee Miller to Play “Sherlock Holmes” in American TV Series

Posted on March 6, 2012 by Regina Jeffers

This is from The Silver Tongue

http://thesilvertongueonline.com/2012/02/jonny-lee-miller-to-play-sherlock-holmes-in-new-u-s-show/

For those of us who love period dramas, Miller was terrific as Edmund Bertram in "Mansfield Park" and absolutely riveting in "Byron."

   Trainspotting and Hackers star Jonny Lee Miller has been cast as Sherlock Holmes in a U.S. version of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s canon of the fictional detective, to be called Elementary. Lucy Liu will join Miller as a female “Watson.” The news of a U.S. adaptation has been met with opposition by Sue Vertue, producer of British show Sherlock. Worried about the two shows having an overlap because of the modern setting, Vertue said recently that:

“At the time, they made great assurances about their integrity, so we have to assume that their modernised Sherlock Holmes doesn’t resemble ours in any way, as that would be extremely worrying. We are very proud of our show and like any proud parent, will protect the interest and wellbeing of our offspring.”

A pilot of Elementary will be filmed over the coming months and, if successful, a full series will be commissioned on CBS in the Autumn.

Benedict Cumberbatch as "Sherlock"

   Sherlock will return to the BBC for a third run, according to writers Steven Moffatt and Mark Gatiss. Although, with both Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman filming in major Hollywood blockbusters this year – Star Trek and The Hobbit, respectively – it is thought that 2013 will be the most likely date for said return.

 

I LOVE both Jonny Lee Miller and Benedict Cumberbatch, and I don’t want to have to decide who makes the best Sherlock. Who would you pick?

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The Norman Invasion Begins with William I

Posted on March 5, 2012 by Regina Jeffers

Vikings settling in northwest France became the “Normans.” In the middle of the 11th Century, the Normans conquered southern Italy and England. William the Conqueror defeated King Harold at the Battle of Hastings and was crowned King on Christmas Day 1066. The Anglo-Saxon residents were treated poorly by the Norman government, especially in land rights, but the Normans also taught the English residents more about how to be productive on the land, and the English economy grew by leaps and bounds. Beautiful stone cathedrals and churches are stunning remnants of the time. (Have you seen “Pillars of the Earth”?)

William I, or William the Conqueror, ruled England from 1066 to 1087. William, the illegitimate son of the Duke of Normandy, spent his first six years with his mother in Falaise and received the duchy of Normandy upon his father’s death in 1035. A council consisting of noblemen and William’s appointed guardians ruled Normandy but ducal authority waned under the Normans’ violent nature and the province was wracked with assassination and revolt for twelve years. In 1047, William reasserted himself in the eastern Norman regions and, with the aid of France’s King Henry I, crushed the rebelling barons. He spent the next several years consolidating his strength on the continent through marriage, diplomacy, war and savage intimidation. By 1066, Normandy was in a position of virtual independence from William’s feudal lord, Henry I of France and the disputed succession in England offered William an opportunity for invasion.

The arrival and conquest of William and the Normans radically altered the course of English history. Rather than attempt a wholesale replacement of Anglo-Saxon law, William fused continental practices with native custom. By disenfranchising Anglo-Saxon landowners, he instituted a brand of feudalism in England that strengthened the monarchy. Villages and manors were given a large degree of autonomy in local affairs in return for military service and monetary payments. The Anglo-Saxon office of sheriff was greatly enhanced: sheriffs arbitrated legal cases in the shire courts on behalf of the king, extracted tax payments and were generally responsible for keeping the peace. “The Domesday Book” was commissioned in 1085 as a survey of land ownership to assess property and establish a tax base. Within the regions covered by the Domesday survey, the dominance of the Norman king and his nobility are revealed: only two Anglo-Saxon barons that held lands before 1066 retained those lands twenty years later. All landowners were summoned to pay homage to William in 1086. William imported an Italian, Lanfranc, to take the position of Archbishop of Canterbury; Lanfranc reorganized the English Church, establishing separate Church courts to deal with infractions of Canon law. Although he began the invasion with papal support, William refused to let the church dictate policy within English and Norman borders.

The first years of William’s reign were spent crushing resistance and securing his borders, which he did with ruthless efficiency. He invaded Scotland in 1072 and concluded a truce with the Scottish king. He marched into Wales in 1081 and created special defensive ‘marcher’ counties along the borders. The last serious rebellion against his rule, the Revolt of the Earls, took place in 1075. In 1086, William ordered a survey to be made of the kingdom. This became known as the Domesday Book and remains one of the oldest valid legal documents in Britain.

With the kingdom increasingly settled, William spent most of his last 15 years in Normandy, leaving the government of England to regents, usually clergymen. He spent the last months of his reign fighting Philip I, King of France. He died on 9 September 1087 from injuries received when he fell from his horse at the Siege of Mantes. He divided his lands between two of his sons, with Robert receiving Normandy and William Rufus, England.

Some great sites with historical content including information on William the Conqueror:

http://www.britannia.com/history/monarchs/mon22.html

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/MEDwilliam1.htm

http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/historic_figures/william_i_king.shtml

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Honor and Hope, a Contemporary Romantica based on Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice

Posted on March 3, 2012 by Regina Jeffers

by Regina Jeffers

During March, we at AustenAuthors.net will be looking at Jane Austen’s influence on contemporary romance, as well as to look back at those who have written contemporary romances based on Austen’s tales. One of the key issues in the publishing business is that the author of a romance must have a strong, sympathetic believable character as the heroine. Elizabeth Bennet is the model for the romantic heroine. What we admire in Elizabeth is what we admire in most romance novels. She is a keen observer of human nature and society’s peculiarities, but she is also quite willing to own up to her own failings. All Elizabeth’s quirks and flaws add up to a heroine to which readers of any century can relate. Elizabeth’s quest to learn how to open herself up to romance when it comes along is the pattern we see repeated again and again in modern romances.

Austen is a thematic master. Of course, there is the biting humor and delving insights, but it is her development of theme that prevails. I call her thematic technique a “broccoli” because Austen expertly develops the plot by using strong story lines that branch out like a head of a broccoli. She builds gradation upon gradation of a single idea, which encases a central truism. There is a repetitive pattern that sucks the reader into the theme. One finds timbre and connections. Theme explains why Austen’s pieces work so well. There is a permanence of purpose.

Recently, I have pulled out my modern Pride and Prejudice novel and have given it a good once over. Honor and Hope is leaner; I removed some 20 pages from the original. I also revisited some of the scenes to make them read smoother. Honor and Hope is not a book I have ever publicly promoted because I knew it needed another look before I did anything with it. This book came about as a transition piece between Darcy’s Passions and its sequel Darcy’s Temptation (originally entitled Darcy’s Dreams). I had hit a wall with the sequel, not a “wall” of ideas, but a “wall” about the direction the piece would take. I had a vision for Darcy’s Temptation, but I questioned whether I had “forced” the story line. There was nothing to do but to abandon the book for a time. Therefore, I took up the writing of Honor and Hope.

First, I needed a setting upon which to base the book. For my birthday several friends had taken me to visit a North Carolina winery. I thought it would be the perfect setting for a story line. Next came the main characters. An Alpha male hero with an obsession for one particular woman and a strong, independent heroine developed. I started Honor and Hope, but I quickly realized I had broken the cardinal rule for romance novels–I brought the lovers together too quickly. As a former theatre teacher, I had related the old adage of boy gets girl, boy loses girl, boy gets girl as the romantic story line. So, I rewrote a major portion of the book, but it didn’t work for this couple. They desired each other completely and would risk anything to be together; I didn’t envision them as being the type to wait–to play the “teasing” games often found in contemporary romance.

A third time I reworked the piece. Originally, Will and Liz met by accident and quickly fell into a physically dependent relationship. Now, the task became creating a “history” for them. I changed the current physical relationship to one begun in college with an extended separation and then an accidental meeting where they discovered each other once more. Of course, I tossed in several “challenges” before they can know happiness.

Mountain State University is based on Western Carolina University. My son attended school there, and it has a beautiful campus. My son is a distance runner, and I love the pro football season. They were natural backdrops for Will and Liz’s relationship. I live in the Charlotte, North Carolina, area, giving me a basic knowledge of places involved in the story line. I’m originally from West Virginia; we often joke that it is part of our cultural heritage to vacation at Myrtle Beach. From Charlotte, the trip is less than three hours to Myrtle. Therefore, I added Myrtle Beach to the story line. I love the Resort at Glade Springs outside of Beckley, West Virginia; it became an integral part of the scenes of the book–a perfect romantic destination. Visits to England and to Tuscany complement the action; they are two of my “dream” itineraries.

Before I go further, I must extend my apologies to Jane Austen. I love her works more than any other literature. Miss Austen creates drama out of morality–her works are perfect. She knows how to describe a man because she doesn’t exploit her feminine daydreams. This book is loosely–VERY loosely–based on Pride and Prejudice. My second “apology” goes to the Jane Austen Society in Bath, England. I do know they celebrate their annual convention in September. However, for this book’s purposes, I moved it to the last part of February or early March. I also included my own convoluted “name game” to advance my story line.

This book is contemporary romantica–a couple hopelessly in love–and also sexually attracted to each other–a sexy romance focused on the relationship between Will and Liz. I write scenes–connected scenes–such as one finds in a play or a movie. My theatre background makes me prefer telling the story through dialogue rather than description. The “scenes” play in my head; I see the hero and heroine acting out the events. My dialogue is used to create the connection between the characters–the intimate relationship between a man and a woman.

Will and Liz must resolve their own character flaws and their “secrets” before making a permanent commitment. The plot isn’t simply their love affair. The events are obvious in some places and surprising in others. I use backward plotting in designing the story’s frame–starting with scenarios I wanted to create–and then figuring out what I needed in place beforehand to make the scenarios believable. The plot says “happily ever after” has a price to pay.

Within weeks, Honor and Hope will reappear from a different publisher and will be available on Kindle. Right now, it sports a cover drawn by one of my students for the book. I am excited to have the book finally out there for readers who keep asking more about it.

ABOUT THE BOOK: Liz Bennet’s flirtatious nature acerbates Will Darcy’s controlling tendencies, sending him into despair when she fiercely demands her independence from him. How could she repeatedly turn him down? Darcy has it all – good looks, a pro football career, intelligence, and wealth. Pulled together by a passionate desire, which neither time nor distance can quench, Will and Liz are destined to love each other and to misunderstand each other until Fate deals them a blow from which they cannot escape. Set against the backdrop of professional sports and the North Carolina wine country, Honor and Hope offers a modern romance loosely based on Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice.

To read an excerpt from Honor and Hope, visit my website, www.rjeffers.com

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Eagle Cam Brings Us an Up Close Look at Nature at Its Best

Posted on March 2, 2012 by Regina Jeffers

I admit it. I’m hooked on the Carolina Raptor Center’s EAGLE CAM. I have watched Savannah and Derek (the “parent” eagles) sit endlessly on their nest to hatch the newest eaglet. Take a look for yourself.

by NewsChannel 36 Staff

Posted on February 27, 2012 at 8:44 AM

Updated yesterday at 8:51 AM

HUNTERSVILLE, N.C. — An eaglet hatched at the nest of Savannah and Derek on Saturday at the Carolina Raptor Center and the first feeding was caught on camera.

WATCH THE EAGLE CAM LIVE

http://www.wcnc.com/news/local/eagle-cam

Around 1:15 p.m. the first eaglet broke through the egg. Folks at the Carolina Raptor Center said Savannah and Derek had been very restless for a few days, turning the eggs often.  As soon as the first egg hatched, Derek got very attentive, wanting to switch off with Savannah more often.

A second egg is still in the nest.  Eggs hatch in the order they were laid.  It can take from 12-48 hours to hatch after an eaglet makes the first break in the shell.

At Carolina Raptor Center, neither parent has to hunt for food.  The staff immediately adds another “portion” of food to the daily feeding. Eagle Cam watchers will notice that Derek brings food to the nest and that the pair shares feeding duty.

Eagles feed their young by shredding pieces of meat from their prey with their beaks. The female gently coaxes her tiny chick to take a morsel of meat from her beak. She will offer food again and again, eating rejected morsels herself, and then tearing off another piece for the eaglet.

One of the first Eaglet pictures

Savannah feeding the new eaglet

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YA Literature and eBooks???

Posted on March 1, 2012 by Regina Jeffers

Are Teens Embracing E-books?
The Digital Divide
By Karen Springen
Feb 20, 2012

A recent PubTrak survey from R.R. Bowker indicated that teens remain reluctant when it comes to e-books. Accustomed to social media, they find that electronic stories have “too many restrictions,” according to the report. But many industry players—agents, booksellers, publishers, and authors—are saying just the opposite: digital sales are booming for YA fiction.

As evidence, over the recent holiday season Barnes & Noble sold five times as many YA e-titles as print ones online, says Jim Hilt, VP of e-books for the chain. And at Amazon, there was a similar trend: “YA e-books are growing even faster than e-books overall in the Kindle Store,” Russ Grandinetti, v-p of Kindle Content, told PW in an e-mail.

As for the dreaded cannibalization of print, it does not appear to be happening in YA. “The whole pie grows,” says Hilt. “There’s a lot more evidence that users are going back and forth between digital and physical. People are now buying more books when they become digital readers. The key is to have the book available in all formats.”

Publishers are waiting for new statistics coming out at the end of this month from Ypulse, the youth market research group, but they expect to see more signs of growth in teen e-commerce. In its February 2011 study, the company found that 10.7% of 14–24-year-old students owned e-readers, and just 6% owned tablets. With Amazon selling a rumored six million Kindles over the recent holiday season, Melanie Shreffler, editor-in-chief of Ypulse, confidently says, “It definitely went up.”

Teenagers are a demographic perfectly poised to consume digital content. “They are on their devices all the time,” says Cristina Gilbert, executive director of trade marketing and publicity for Bloomsbury. “They’re so mobile, so digital. E-reading is an extension of how they live.” And they are already old hands at accessing digital content—downloading movies, TV shows, and music. “Getting book content online is a natural for teens,” says Andrew Smith, v-p and deputy publisher of Little, Brown Books for Young Readers.

 

And there is plenty of content out there. Hot print books—including Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight saga, Rick Riordan’s Lightning Thief series, and Suzanne Collins’s Hunger Games trilogy—have become hot e-books. “The category just has a massive, huge catalogue to sell from, so inherently it’s always going to sell more than what you’d see, say, in the picture book space,” says Hilt. (Unlike YA titles, picture books are almost exclusively bought by adults, who prefer print for the youngest of children.) “With big books, movie tie-ins, and more tech-savvy kids getting e-readers,” Hilt says, “it’s kind of a perfect storm.”(The three Hunger Games titles are among B&N’s top five bestselling e-books even before the March 23 release of what is expected to be a blockbuster movie.)

To read the complete article and to hear the opinions of many YA writers on the subject, visit Publishers Weekly at http://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/childrens/childrens-industry-news/article/50707-are-teens-embracing-e-books-.html 

Bestselling YA Titles in the Kindle Store

There are seven YA books in Kindle’s 100 top-selling e-books.

1. Twilight (Book 1) by Stephenie Meyer  (#2 rank overall)

2. The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins (#3 rank overall)

3. Catching Fire (Hunger Games #2) by Suzanne Collins (#4 rank overall)

4. MockingJay (Hunger Games #3) by Suzanne Collins (#5 rank overall)

5. Hunger Games Trilogy by Suzanne Collins (#7 rank overall)

6. The Borrowers by Mary Norton   (#36 rank overall)

7. Breaking Dawn (Twilight #4) (#63 rank overall)

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Shutting Down Piracy Site

Posted on February 29, 2012 by Regina Jeffers

International publisher alliance shuts down piracy site

15.02.12 | Katie Allen

This article comes from The Bookseller.com. For the complete article, visit http://www.thebookseller.com/news/international-publisher-alliance-shuts-down-piracy-site.html

An international alliance of publishers, including Cambridge University Press, Elsevier and Pearson Education Ltd, has served successful cease-and-desist orders on a piracy operation with an estimated turnover of £7m.An international alliance of publishers, including Cambridge University Press, Elsevier and Pearson Education Ltd, has served successful cease-and-desist orders on a piracy operation with an estimated turnover of £7m.

The two platforms, sharehoster service www.ifile.it and link librarywww.library.nu, had together created an “internet library” making more than 400,000 e-books available as free illegal downloads. The operators generated an estimated turnover of €8m (£6.7m) through advertising, donations and sales of premium-level accounts, according to a report by German law firm Lausen which helped co-ordinate the alliance.

The other publishers involved also comprised Georg Thieme; HarperCollins; Hogrefe; Macmillan Publishers Ltd; Cengage Learning; John Wiley & Sons;the McGraw-Hill Companies; Pearson Education Inc; Oxford University Press; Springer; Taylor & Francis; C H Beck; and Walter De Gruyter. The alliance was also co-ordinated by the German Publishers and Booksellers Association (Börsenverein) and the International Publishers Association (IPA), Jens Bammel, secretary general of the IPA, said: “Today, the international book industry has shown that it continues to stand up against organised copyright crime.

Alexander Skipis, Börsenverein c.e.o., added: “This case demonstrates, in particular in the context of current debates, that systematic copyright infringement has developed into a highly criminal and lucrative business.”

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The Value of the Cover Art in Romance Sells

Posted on February 28, 2012 by Regina Jeffers

Perhaps no publisher taps into amorous fantasies as thoroughly as Harlequin, which over more than six decades has become synonymous with romance. The Toronto-based company, founded in 1949, publishes about 110 fiction and non-fiction titles per month in 31 languages and is one of the leading publishers of books for women. The content of these romance novels can be as fantastic as their covers, which feature a fair share of windswept heroes (yes, Fabio) and heated embraces. As society’s views on gender and sex have evolved, so has Harlequin’s cover art, going from vaguely suggestive to unabashedly erotic over the decades. “Love may be essential to the narratives inside these books but it is lust that is imaged on the covers,” states a company history. Margie Miller, Harlequin’s creative art director, says readers “want to feel uplifted, lifted and carried out of their own lives. Not that their lives are bad, but it’s a happiness hit.” The covers are designed to help transport them.

To read the complete article and to see how Harlequin’s romance covers have evolved over the years, visit Bloomberg Businessweek at http://images.businessweek.com/slideshows/20120210/under-the-covers-harlequin-s-images-of-romance. They are really quite spectacular. There is also a link for Harlequin’s most memorable covers. You’ll enjoy seeing how much has changed and how much has stayed the same.

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Unrestricted Lending of Library eBooks? Will It Happen?

Posted on February 27, 2012 by Regina Jeffers

Never has a price increase been such good news for libraries. At a meeting with ALA leaders this week in New York, Random House officials said the “terms of sale” for Random House e-books to libraries will change, with a price increase coming. But the publisher reiterated its commitment to library e-book lending, saying they would continue to enable e-book lending of their entire list for both adult and children’s titles, backlist and frontlist, without restriction. “No change,” Random House spokesman Stuart Applebaum told PW in a briefing this morning, when asked about Random Houses’s current policy of not limiting lends (such as HarperCollins) or title availability (such as Penguin, Hachette) or not lending at all (Macmillan and Simon & Schuster).

Applebaum could not say how much the price of e-books would change, noting that pricing for libraries would be an ongoing discussion between the publisher and its customers. The reason for the price change? E-books are simply different, he explained, and the publisher is seeking to establish a fair balance that allows for both library use without restriction, and a fair rate of return for its authors.

The news comes as a delegation of ALA officials, including executive director Keith Fiels and ALA president Molly Raphael, met this week with publishers over e-books. Currently, of the “big six” publishers, only Random House allows for unrestricted lending of library e-books. Even though the net effect of Random House’s announcement is that the price of library e-books will rise—never a good thing in a time of budget stress—the news is nevertheless positive. At a time when some major publishers have pulled back from selling e-books to libraries, Appleabaum said Random House clearly sees the value libraries add to the ecosystem of reading, and to its bottom line. And as talks between libraries and reluctant publishers grind on, the Random House stance establishes that there is a path forward. Applebaum said Random House is committed to keeping libraries in the business of lending e-books, and that its commitment to libraries reaches to the top of the organization, including CEO Markus Dohle.

For the complete Publishers Weekly, February 2, 2012, article, read http://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/digital/content-and-e-books/article/50478-fair-trade-random-house-will-raise-library-e-book-prices-but-commits-to-e-book-lending.html

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The Romance Genre Endures Because It Offers More than “Happily Ever After”

Posted on February 24, 2012 by Regina Jeffers

from Suzy Parker, USA TODAY

Affection for the romance genre hasn’t faltered even as the rest of the book industry has struggled since the economic crisis began. Sales of romance novels have held steady at about $1.4 billion every year since 2008, according to Romance Writers of America’s 2011 Romance Book Consumer survey.
A large part of the genre’s enduring appeal? The happy-ever-after endings.

“I read romance because, for me, it’s real life on steroids,” says Kara Conrad, 43, a teacher near Little Rock. “In a really good romance, the characters are true to life enough that I recognize myself or others in the characters.” Bad things can happen in the books, she says, but she knows everything will work out fine by the end.

Romances also equal escape. “Between the economy, politics, and bad tidings on the news, romance novels offer a respite, a chance to relax, and the opportunity to step into another world,” says Jenny B. Jones, author of There You’ll Find Me.

Reading a romance can even be life-changing. Romance author Cindy Gerard says a soldier who had done two tours in Iraq wrote to tell her that when he went back a third time, “he planned to die.” While there, he picked up her novel To the Edge.

That soldier, David Drennan, who is on active duty in the U.S. Army National Guard, says he could relate to the book’s hero, who was also struggling with his transition back to society. “It made me feel like I could turn things around for myself if only I had the courage to just get out there and do it,” Drennan told USA TODAY. “Romance novels aren’t just for women.”

Romances show women that they are the heroines of their own lives and that achieving a so-called happy ever after takes hard work.

To read the complete article, please visit USA Today http://www.usatoday.com/life/books/story/2012-02-13/Readers-hearts-remain-true-to-romance-novels/53083074/1 and be sure to tell us below why you read romance?

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