Excerpts from 'A Very Aussie Christmas' Anthology

By the Breathless in the Bush Bloggers

Restore your faith in the power of the human spirit with 6 warm-hearted romances. Celebrate the joy and occasional heartbreak of the festive season, where love shines through against the odds. For all lovers of a little romance at Christmas time, here are some excerpts from our Christmas anthology A Very Aussie Christmas.

Link to Buy

Endings, Beginnings by Enisa Haines

Ash-blonde hair fashioned into a loose bun framed a face deserving of an angel. Eyes the blue of sapphires. Wide eyes emanating an internal agony. He lost himself in the depths, in an emotion he’d never before felt.

Was it possible to fall in love in an instant? His sisters, ever reading those penny dreadful novels, would say ‘yes’.



Desert Fire by Sharon Bryant

White Cliffs. The battered black sign appeared on her right. Littered with holes as if someone had taken a shotgun to it. Emma turned the car. No more main road. Much safer. She frowned. She was being ridiculous. Her stalker didn’t know where she was going.

He couldn’t possibly know.



’Tis the Season by Lynne Boyd

Why the hell was Mr Immaculate going to her parents' place? Was he a salesman or someone from a mining company trying to harass them? On Christmas Eve! What if he was from the bank? Had her parents been keeping problems from her and her brothers?

Well, Kelly would find out soon enough.




Christmas at Castle Bay by Helene Cowan

A class reunion ball on Christmas Eve... Ella’s blood chilled. Callum Anders would be there! No way could she face him. Not even after ten years. The raw bitterness between their families, the public scandal, was still unforgettable. Having to confront him after all this time would be truly embarrassing. Yet how could she avoid the ball?




Millie’s Christmas Miracle by Cassandra Samuels

“Millie, hurry.” Her father’s booming voice broke through the hum of the dining room. “It’s Will.”

Her heart stopped. Will? A smile broke out across her face. Her William was back!

He’d left her twelve long months ago, promising to be back by Christmas. When no letters came, she’d feared something terrible had happened and she had fallen into despair. But Will always kept his promises and now here he was.



Home for Christmas by Marilyn Forsyth

Melissa had no right to begrudge her mother a life after Dad’s passing, but an invitation extended to Doc Bailey for Christmas lunch? What the hell? If she’d been uncertain about the relationship developing between her mother and the doc, that settled it.

Still, if she could finally allow herself to move on, she should allow her mother to do the same.

Shouldn’t she?

We Love to Love peace and joy at Christmas!

We Love to Laugh at animal Christmas gifs.

We Love to Learn what each of us will choose for our favourite 2018 Aussie Romance book (to be announced on the Breathless List in January). 

(All gifs and pictures in this post are free to use.)

Sexy History With Mystery!

BITB welcomes guest blogger  MADDISON MICHAELS

Hi everyone! I'm Maddison Michaels and I write sexy history with a dash of mystery! Being a historical romance writer, one of the things I absolutely love doing is researching. I particularly adore learning about historical inventions. For example, have you heard of a waterproof canvas bag in the 1800s?

I certainly hadn't - until I needed to do some research for my second novel THE ELUSIVE EARL. You see my heroine, Brianna, had a very special journal that she needs to take with her on her adventure through the Italian countryside, and during her travels there may be an occasion where she and the journal take an unexpected swim... But because I needed to have the journal remain legible, I had to research what sort of materials were available in the 1850s that could actually work to protect the journal from the water...

Photo credit: amazon.com

I was thrilled when I read about the Macintosh waterproof canvas, which was a material invented in the Regency era by a chemist names Charles Macintosh. The material itself was made by sandwiching a thin layer of Naptha-treated rubber between two layers of cloth. It was made famous when in 1827 on a voyage to the North Pole, a bag of cocoa (which was made from Macintosh's waterproof canvas) fell overboard into the sea, and when it was retrieved, the Captain said that 'it did not suffer the slightest injury...'.

So in 1856 (when my novel is set), the Macintosh canvas was often used to ensure things were kept waterproof. In fact, the Mackintosh Raincoat (spelt slightly different to the inventor's surname, but still in existence to this day), was made from the same material. So YAY, the material was in existence back than and was just perfect for the perils my character was going to have to face… LOL!

Photo source: Carson, Pirie, Scott & CO. catalogue, 1893, within the public domain

What about you? Any cool historical inventions you've discovered in the course of reading?

From Maddison 

I Love To Love: with all my heart.

I Love To Laugh: until I cry (happy tears of course).

I Love To Learn: something new every single day!

The Rise and Rise of Aussie-Based Thrillers

by Tory Hayward

Its fair to say that one of the few areas in which Australian cultural cringe has been quietly thriving is the genre of Aussie-based suspense, mystery, crime and thrillers. It's always felt a bit daggy somehow. A bit try-hard.

Australian romance, especially rural romance is a different matter entirely. Loved to the level of iconicism, these stories are enduringly popular. Australian horror is similar. But when it comes to police investigations, conspiracy, murder and elite agents... aside from a couple of stand out authors, well, its just never taken off as a genre.

This has always bemused me somewhat. Its always seemed that Australia would be a perfect base for this kind of story. While we may be a small nation, culturally we have everything required for a 'westernised' thriller, but with the added interest of being Asia-Pacific based, with a tyrannical environment that can add isolation and complication at every turn. In a genre heaving with US and UK based FBI / CIA / NCIS / MI6 etc etc stories there is so much freshness to be found in Australia as a location.

So thank goodness Aussie based thrillers are starting to follow their romance and horror based cousins out of the doldrums and into the spotlight.

This slow growing popularity reached a tipping point in 2016 with the novel The Dry, by Jane Harper, and the hugely successful Canberra based tv mini-series The Code. Since then there has been a dignified but persistent scramble by publishers to acquire Aussie based crime and thrillers.

Scrublands by Chris Hammer, The Nowhere Child by Christian White, Only Daughter by Anna Snoekstra, The Dark Lake by Sarah Bailey, and Crimson Lake by Candice Fox followed on the heels of The Dry. Award winning and hugely popular, these novels have all started to define the genre and in doing so have piqued the interest of scriptwriters globally.

I, for one, am excited to see what local writers produce over the coming years (decades?!), and to watch them take ownership on the worldwide stage.

Love to love: a cup of tea!

Love to Laugh: at life!

Love to Learn: about what the future holds!

Take care

Txx

Who Reads Romance Novels?

Who Reads Romance Novels?

By Alyssa J. Montgomery

Romance novels have been outselling every other genre for many years. The most recent figures I found cited Romance/erotica sales as being at US$1.44 billion dollars and Crime coming in at second spot with sales of US$728.2 million. According to the Romance Writers of Australia website, of 10 million books sold each year in the United Kingdom, greater than 7 million are romance novels, and there is a Mills & Boon sold every three seconds in the UK!

So, who are all these voracious romance readers and is there a ‘type’ of person who’s more inclined to read romance?

In a fabulous article for Huffington Post, (see link below), Maya Rodale quoted facts and figures to dispel the notion that “It is a truth universally acknowledged that romance readers are single women in possession of cats and in want of a man”; “younger women who use them as emotional porn”; or “middle aged women who are bored in their marriages and want to fantasise about hard, chiselled men”.

A study of 2000 romance readers, published by the Romance Writers of America found that contrary to all the negative stereotypes, the basic demographic of the romance reader is a well educated woman aged from 25-64 years. 82% of the romance readers surveyed were female and 18% were male. A 2016 ARRA survey revealed that of 275 respondents, only one was male, and 78.1% said that 50% or more of the books they read were romances.

Now, on some level statistics may be interesting—particularly to publishers and authors who are trying to determine the emerging trends in the marketplace. To focus on these figures, however, is to overlook the essence of what makes a romance reader.

I believe the gender, sexual persuasion or age of the romance reader doesn’t matter, nor does their educational level or marital status. As far as I’m concerned, it’s of no consequence as to what sub-genre of romance he or she is likely to enjoy or whether they love billionaires, shape-shifters or cowboys. 

The crucial commonality is that all romance readers love to feel an emotional connection to characters as they read. It’s the emotional journey undertaken by the characters that the romance reader empathises with and finds satisfying. There’s your answer to the question ‘Who reads romances?’

Romance readers are generally compassionate people who feel deeply and possess great empathy. They’re usually positive people who love a happy ending, and have a knack of making others around them happy.

Sound like emotional claptrap? Well, just attend any romance reader event and see the friendships, the shared laughter and the sense of community! It's great to be part of the world of romance reading.

Who reads romance novels?

I do, and I’m betting if you’re reading this, so do you!

Love to love: Romance novels!!

Love to Laugh: Romance novels make me laugh just as much as they make me teary. It’s that satisfying emotional journey that counts!

Love to Learn: What other romance readers are reading and enjoying, especially finding a new author, so leave a comment below and perhaps make a recommendation of three romance novels you’d recommend to someone discovering the genre.

References:

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/maya-rodale/who-is-the-the-romance-novel-reader_b_7192588.html

https://www.bookstr.com/book-genres-that-make-the-most-money

https://www.rwa.org/page/romance-reader-statistics

https://australianromancereaders.wordpress.com/2016/11/17/australian-romance-readers-survey-2016-results/

http://romanceaustralia.com/about-rwa/media/about-romance/