My Book Boyfriends

When I’m reading a book, especially if it’s a good one, I tend to cast the characters in my head, often using well-known personalities like actors, athletes, and musicians. It helps bring the story to life in my mind. I think many readers do the same, especially romance readers. The tendency, of course, is to choose only the hero and imagine one’s self to be the heroine. Hence, the term Book Boyfriend.

Recently, there have been discussions in a couple of my Facebook reading groups on who we’d cast for specific books if they were ever made into movies.

At Sally Thorne’s Flamethrowers, The Hating Game’s fan group, Joshua Templeman is always Liam Hemsworth. Sally herself said he’s her inspiration for the character and who are we to argue with the author? Josh is supposed to be at least six-four, has dark brown hair, ink-blue eyes, strong masculine jawline, and sulky, pretty mouth. Here he is in Wednesday Dove-Gray. Hmm. Looks about right.

At the Old School Romance Book Club, our Book-of-the-Month for June is Lisa Kleypas’s Dreaming of You. The hero is Derek Craven, described as having blunt, strong and even features; “green eyes, the color of grass on a cool spring morning”; and swarthy skin. I suggested a younger Clive Owen, and a lot of the members agree with me.

Whenever I read about a tall, dark-haired, blue-eyed hero in romance novels, I immediately think of Henry Cavill. It doesn’t matter if he’s Irish, British, or American; whether the book is historical or contemporary, the hero will always be Henry. For me he’s Roarke, my ultimate Book Boyfriend, from J.D. Robb’s In Death series.

He’s also Blake Ryan in my novel, One Week in Boracay. And since I can’t make myself the heroine, I chose Filipina actress Iza Calzado as inspiration for Blake’s love interest, Krista Lopez.

I’m so excited to finish writing about these two and their journey to finding love. I hope to share them with everyone soon. Maybe someday, Blake will be someone’s Book Boyfriend, too. One thing’s for sure, he’s mine right now.

Note: Photos featured here are not my own and were accessed through public sites.

My Name Is Maida And I’m A Bookaholic

I am not exaggerating when I say I have a To Be Read mountain–ok, fine, hill–rather than a mere pile. There are a couple of hundreds of paper books on the floor of my home library and a few hundreds each of ebooks on Amazon Kindle, Apple iBooks, and Nook. Add to these my membership to the San Antonio Public Library and Houston Area Digital Media Catalog and I have an unlimited access to thousands of books

Does that stop me from buying more? Heck, no! Yesterday, May 30, was release day for some of my favorite romance authors–Lorraine Heath, Eva Moore, Julia Quinn, and Nora Roberts. Naturally, I bought them all.

Bibliophile. Book Collector. Book Hoarder. No matter the label, that’s me. As another Bookaholic said, I’m “Addicted. Obsessed. Passionate.” about books and I’m proud of it.

Eating And Reading Are Two Pleasures That Combine Admirably

I love reading. I love food. I love reading books with food in them. I love it so much that all my books will feature local food from their respective setting (Philippines, Singapore, Thailand). Also, the hero of my third book, Craig, is a chef.

I thought of this quote by CS Lewis because I recently read two food-centric romance novels – Sherry Thomas’s Delicious and Laura Florand’s The Chocolate Thief. The food descriptions in both novels were so vivid and sumptuous that the first thing I did after reading was go to a French café and buy madeleines and chocolate tartlets and mini-croissants.

I always give high marks to books that make me react – whether it is to cry, laugh, or think. Those that induce me to go out and buy food deserve no less than five stars. It doesn’t hurt that they are fantastic stories told by talented authors. These were my first books by these two writers and they won’t be the last. I already have their backlists on my Overdrive holds. What are a dozen more books to pile onto my TBR mountain? Why, nothing. Nothing at all.

Mommy, Thank You for Giving Me the Love of Reading

You may have tangible wealth, untold caskets of jewels, and coffers of gold;

Richer than I you can never be, I had a mother who read to me.

~ Strickland Gillilan, The Reading Mother

I also have a mother who used to read to me. And on this Mother’s Day, I’d like to honor her and thank her, not only for giving me life, but also for encouraging my literary pursuits. All my life she has always nurtured my love of reading. Seldom was I scolded for bringing a book to the dining table. My poor eyesight was not blamed on reading in the dark or on reading in a moving vehicle. It was TV’s fault, never books. She could not admonish me for reading too much. After all, she was the one who taught me to read. My mom, Marieta Ruaza, was a teacher – to me and my siblings and to thousands of kids in the Philippines for over forty years.

She was also a short story writer. If writing is a hereditary trait, then I must have gotten it from her. I hope my son will get the writing gene, too. If not, I can only be happy to know that he appreciates my reading to him. Maybe, someday he will write a poem about his Reading Mom, too.

Thank you, Mommy. I love you! Happy Mother’s Day!

Looking for Asian/Pacific-American Heroines in Romance Novels

May is officially the Asian American Pacific Islander Heritage Month in the US and this month, I’ve decided I’m going to read romance novels featuring heroines of Asian descent. Before today, I’ve only read a few, among them Nalini Singh’s Rock Courtship, Alisha Rai’s Pleasure series, The Bollywood Bride by Sonali Dev, Lora Leigh’s Wicked Pleasure, Jaci Burton’s Midnight Velvet, and Fobolous by my friend Rainne Mendoza.

My Goodreads search proved to be frustrating as there are very few books that answer to the criteria – 190 if you include South Asians. Amazon is not much help either – only 40 are listed and most of the heroines are half something else.

It’s no wonder that 63% of those who answered the Dangerous Books for Girls survey said (they) “…think there is not enough diversity in characters and settings…”. It’s true, there’s not.

In the same study, it was learned that there were over 9,500 Romance ISBNs in 2013. Very likely, that figure went up in 2016. If I would hazard a guess, the number of those books who have Asian/Pacific Islander heroines would be pitifully small, could only be just a handful. Why? Are people not buying them? The Romance genre is a Billion-dollar industry and there’s no market for novels with my kind of protagonists? That’s sad and I refuse to believe that.

According to the 2010 US Census Bureau Statistics, over 3.3 Million American husbands have Asian wives. If only a small fraction of those wives read romance novels, that’s still a substantial number who may want to see their stories told in books. Toni Morrison said, “If there’s a book you really want to read, but it hasn’t been written yet, then you must write it.” So, that’s what I’m doing, I’m writing their story.

I’m writing MY story.

Read A Lot, Write A Lot

“If you want to be a writer, you must do two things above all others: read a lot and write a lot. There’s no way around these two things that I’m aware of, no shortcut.”
― Stephen King, On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft

I have no problem with reading a lot. Last year, I recorded 465 books on Goodreads. It’s the writing a lot that is hard for me. On January 1, I set my Reading Challenge to 120 in order to give myself more time to write. This was based on my experience in November when I wrote most of my first book, One Week in Boracay. I managed to put together 51K words, but only read a dozen books. So far this year, I’ve already read 80 so I had to increase my goal to 180. However, apart from the title Christmas in New York, I haven’t written a word of my second book yet.

Then I saw Katy Regnery’s blog post and my jaw dropped. From September 2013 until April 2017, she published 31 books. She completes one book every five to six weeks. Talk about prolific! I’m awed and envious.

Can I do that? Possibly. I did put the finishing touches on Boracay five weeks after I started it. Will I do it? Maybe someday. When I don’t take three months to edit, or when I have a team to help me with editing, cover design, formatting, etc. But not yet, not for a long while yet. For now, I’ll read a lot first, then maybe I’ll write a lot of the second book, and the third, and the fourth…

Not maybe. I will. Starting now.

“No two persons ever read the same book.”

The quote was attributed to Edmund Wilson, a noted American writer, editor, and critic. I agree with him.

This year, I have decided to write a short review of every book I read or reread and post it on Amazon/Goodreads. Before 2017, I used to only rate the books without giving my reasons for the number of stars. After posting my rating, then and only then will I check out other people’s reviews. I always look for the ones that are most diametrically opposed to mine and just shake my head and smile at the reasoning behind their grades.

Here are a couple of examples:

The Hating Game by Sally Thorne

M: “Five flamethrowing stars. This book is fresh and young, utterly delightful. Josh and Lucy are fantastic characters, their chemistry is electric. I adore their conversations. I didn’t want the book to end. One of my new favorites.”

S: “DNF. Lucinda and Joshua are extremely annoying. I don’t care about how much she hates Josh 4Ever.”

The Duke and the Lady in Red by Lorraine Heath

M: “Five heartrending stars. This novel broke my heart and put it back together again. Avendale – he’s so flawed and yet so amazingly heroic. Rose — a swindling angel. Harry — the best part, the heart of the book.”

E: Two stars. DNF. Barf. Cannot stand the prose.

We’re all different and what appeals to one may not be attractive to others. This brings to mind another (cliché) quote, “One (wo)man’s trash is another (wo)man’s treasure.” This is one of the reasons why I appreciate my favorite Facebook Group–Old School Romance Book Club (OSRBC)–so much. We all just agree to disagree. The members’ thoughts and opinions are respected and supported. They might have been the cause of my out-of-control TBR pile, but I won’t ever regret joining them. #OSRBCRocks

Proud Romance Reader

The ebook of Dangerous Books for Girls, Maya Rodale’s nonfiction book on romance novels, is on sale for $2.99. This book, published in May 2015, is based on Ms. Rodale’s master’s thesis which examined the stigma attached to consumption of this genre.

As a reader–and now, writer–of romance novels, this study fascinates me. Even when I was young, I was never ashamed of reading them because I was known as a math nerd. Nobody maligned me for my choice of reading materials. The only reason I hid books within the folds of the skirt of my uniform was that I was not supposed to be reading during school hours, and not because of the subject of my book. I would have done the same for a Shakespeare or a Charles Dickens title. But then, it’s probably because I grew up in the Philippines, where you’re encouraged to improve your English as best as you can. Reading anything in the language was an accepted–even approved–means of doing that.

I never knew that Americans are looked down on when they read romance. That was weird to me because most of the books I read in Manila were from the US. Even when I came to the US in 2005, I was still oblivious. Had I been interviewed for this study, I would have been one of the “50% of romance readers who love the genre and don’t care who knows it”. I surely would have answered that romance novels make me happy.

As a writer, I am encouraged by this infographic. Especially as I’m hoping to address the lack of diversity in characters and settings issue mentioned here. I hope my multicultural, contemporary novels set in Southeast Asia will find a place in the romance readers’ bookshelves. I certainly hope they won’t feel guilty about reading it for pleasure.

Thanks, Maya Rodale, for this enlightening study. Your books are now going up on my TBR pile.