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Tuesday, April 10, 2007

FINALLY I"M HERE

Hi All!

I'm the member of the FOUR LADIES that had to be dragged kicking and screaming into blogging. Let me introduce myself, I'm Livia and I love to read categories, single title contemporary romances and romantic suspense. My favorite authors? I'll give you the top ten, J D Robb, Cindy Dees, Merline Lovelace, Diana Palmer, Linda Howard, Catherine Mann, Vicki Hinze, Betty Neels, Cheryl St, John and Lindsay McKenna.

You'll notice that five of my top ten authors write military romance and they're the best at what they do, which brings me to what I want to blog about today, Military Romances. Write a romance where one of the main characters is a member of the armed services and it immediately becomes an automatic buy for me. I'll buy it whether the author is well known or not, the only thing I ask is that the author make an attempt at researching to get the background facts straight. With the five authors in my top ten, this is not an issue. Three are ex-military and two have ties close enough that they know the facts. Their books are always exciting to read and you can bet the story line will contain interestings facts and tibits that are authentic. Let's not forget that the romance will always be emotional and intriguing, in short a book that satisfies.

Now, in my opinion, it's not always necessary to be heavily connected to the Arm Forces to write a good military romance. Debbie Macomber did it early on with her Navy series, one that I keep close by to read repeatedly. Suzanne Brockmann did it with a minimum amount of authentiction, but her characters are so fascinating one reads the books and puts the questions of realism on the back burner. We all know that Ms Brockmann creates Navy SEALs that do extraordinary things and whether the scenarios are real or not is just not the issue. There are however some newer authors that have taken up the challenge of writing romances that deal with military characters, and are failing miserably.

SEALs and Special Forces sell but only if the right components are used in creating the characters. If you think it's possible to develop a following by putting the military figure in a romance and ignoring the occupation, it doesn't work; at least not for this reader. I want more military romances on my keeper shelf but I also want a little truth to help the story along.

Okay, as my first blog post comes to an end,I'm breathing a sigh of relief. I'll be back often to share my thoughts and comments on books and I look forward to hearing from you.

Livia

2 comments:

WK said...

Well hello stranger.LOL And I love your first post! I agree wholeheartedly with you. You know I adore SEALs and special forces, have the military fiction and nonfiction books to prove it. And LOVE the stories that show these guys in action on our soil or not and want a heroine who can handle one of these strong alpha men. But I want that realism. I want to know the author at least read one book about how things work in their world, since it is certainly different from ours(that of a civilian or cop). There are some wonderful authors out there who do an outstanding job of writing about military heroes and heroines, a few I feel I have lost touch with what made me adore them to begin with and seem to be getting away from the "military" part of their stories. But then you have the ones who throw a military character into the mix and you just laugh at what happens because it's so fake. The story might be good but it loses me as a military keeper. Hopefully some of this has made sense. Anyway I agree with you Livia and awesome post!

WendyK

Melissa said...

Welcome, Livia to blogging! I understand why it took you so long to get started. It was intimidating to me at first but I'm trying to get used to it. There are several authors you listed as your top fave that I love- Linda Howard, Diana Palmer and Catherine Mann. I do like military romances and especially those that read authentic. You have great taste! (and so you TRRCs know Melissa is my full name but since you already had a Melissa on staff, I went with Elissa! Smile)