Rebel Carter's Blog

I read a lot of romance books. I write a lot of romance books.

Essentially romance books are my thing. This year I’ve got some big plans as a romance writer. Plans that I wouldn’t believe just a year ago! 2019 was the year of my debut novel and I was clueless in a lot of ways, but somehow I published five more novels that year and wrote even more that are slotted for release in 2020. All I have to say is that 2020 is going to be an amazing year, but it’s hard to find a balance when it just feels like a continual grind. An enjoyable grind, but a grind nonetheless. I want to make sure I make time to enjoy the beautiful content other talented writers are putting out there. It’s important not to lose focus on the things that matter.

And that brings me to my plan for A Year of Books!

You might be thinking “what’s a year of books?”, which is fair because it could mean a lot of things. I’m choosing to read a new book each and every month and share my thoughts in a blog post. I’ve already been doing the reviews on a nearly monthly basis but A Year of Books is an opportunity for y’all to read along with me. And what’s more fun than a read-along?

NOT MUCH, OK?

To join My Year of Books, all you have to do is take your romance book reading self on over to my Facebook fan group, Rebel’s Rebels, and join. I’ll have a post up for each month, and then on the 15th we can all share our thoughts, so think of it as an online book club where we just screech, and I’m talking screech like a pterodactyl, about romance books. It’s going to be fun!

All we need is you to make it even better, and I’ve already picked out the first three books of the year so you can make you’re ready to go with our first book on January 15th. Though I have the first 3 books picked for this monthly read along I’m open to rec’s from group members and am excited to add some new books to my TBR list.

January- Not the Girl You Marry, Andie J. Christopher
February- The Duchess War- Courtney Milan
March-  Pride, Prejudice, and Other Flavors- Sonali Dev 

***It’s worth mentioning that my Year of Books will primarily focus on BIPOC and LGBTQ authors with Own Voices acting as my northern star for this reading journey. We’ll read everything from contemporary to historical, and back again. Yes, that includes BDSM!

Join Rebel’s Rebels to get started with A Year of Books.

The post A Year of Books! appeared first on Romance Novelist.

The “they” is Romance Writers of America.

We’ll get to the joy I’m protecting later in the post. I’m writing this in the day or so following the bottom falling out of an organization that I was leery of but had hope for, so if I come across as pissed TF off I just want y’all to know that I mean every damn word of it.

Now when I say the bottom falling out of what I really mean is that the Romance Writers of America, or RWA, has done some truly Olympic level heroic and never before seen ass showing. I might be wrong here given that I’m sure they’ve done some pretty shitty things but this one just feels like the most terrible of them to date.

What did they do? Oh, you know, just did some backdoor dealing to form a committee to toss out and ban one of the most hard-working and brilliant voices of the Romancelandia. They went after Courtney Milan. Can I just say what the actual fresh hell is this? Milan has been nothing but an advocate for inclusion and diversity. This woman has worked tirelessly in her career on the RWA board to make it a better place, to show that it isn’t the racist classist paper organization hell-bent on catering to Nice White Ladies. Now I’m not here to give a play-by-play of what happened or to how the paper/tweet trail of bullshit that has surrounded Milan’s recent treatment by the RWA. We aren’t even going to get into the long history of crap Milan has had to deal with from the organization and its members because that would be a novel, not a blog post.

What this post is about is touching on something personal which is kind of the point of blogs so this feels like the place and way to share something that I’ve felt for a while but haven’t been able to put my finger on. The thing I’m talking about is a feeling that was slippery at best. It felt toxic and gross like the shit you get on the bottom of your shoe but can’t quite manage to scrape off so that shit smell lingers and follows you. Stinking up the space around you at random times when you’ve almost forgotten it was ever there. That unexplainable thing has become clear as day given recent events. Another thing to note about this post is that I’m coming at this from a purely WOC point-of-view.

This is how I feel. I’m not speaking for the rest of us.

So here we go. What am I feeling?

I’m tired. I’m tired and I don’t owe my participation in hostile or unwelcoming environments because my time and energy are valuable.

I joined the RWA in the hopes that by doing so I’d be helping further the work of people that had gone before me. One of them being Milan. I went in skeptical but hoping for the best. I see now that my earlier thoughts that RWA was nothing but a bullshit circle jerk were correct. It’s not changing. I don’t think it ever will and while I feel like a clown for giving my hard-earned money to RWA and the CIMRWA chapter, it is what is and I, just like so many other AOCs, cannot get our money back. They handled that neatly with their non-refundable line in the fine print. Now if I could only stop thinking about all the damn things I could have bought with that cash money. We are talking about new shoes and Anastasia brow pencils, people. That’s serious around here, okay? Anyway, my fresa ass digresses.

I’m out cash, but this goes deeper. I’m also out of patience. I’m out of trust. I’m out of time for shit that’ll steal my joy. Courtney Milan tweeted this gem: “They do not get our joy anymore, people. If you’re part of our misery, you’re gone.”

And this is a big mood. The only thing I’m taking with me into 2020 as a romance writer, as a WOC, as someone trying to make my dreams happen and tell the stories that are on my heart. Because you know what’s the worst truth exposed by RWA’s actions? You know, other than their racist and straight up foolishness that protects nothing but NWLs? It’s the fact that no matter how hard you work, how high you climb, how educated or well-spoken you are, or what how many awards they give you (because don’t think they didn’t award Milan with a GODDAMN SERVICE AWARD THIS YEAR) there’s no protection from them when they turn on you.

Funny thing is that’s a lesson BIPOC learn early. Our parents and older family members take us aside and give us “the talk.” Now this is not a talk revolving around the birds and bees, it’s a talk about how to watch your back when it comes to white people. It’s a firm reminder that the world isn’t a kind place and that when we enter spaces that are inherently white that we are vulnerable. That when we seek to leave our communities that we must tread lightly and keep a careful eye on who we surround ourselves with. I was told they’ll smile in your face and stab you in the back the second you turn around.

More than once I’ve learned this lesson. My teachers in this harsh lesson have been people I thought were my friends and even lovers that I foolishly took, groups that I joined and gave myself to, jobs that I gave so much to. Time and time again I was hurt and reminded of how precarious my position is in so many different places. I’ve gotten smarter as I’ve gotten older and so the hurts are fewer and farther in between but it doesn’t mean they don’t still happen. Joining the RWA and subbing to the RITAs was one of those moments, but not because it happened to me but because they did it one of my heroes.

If Milan can be treated like this then how safe is anyone really? The answer is -.07849 percent safe. And that’s pushed me to accept one thing–Participation in organizations and groups is not required of me. I owe my time and joy to no one.

I am not required to keep trying when there are no ins for women like me. I’m allowed to not be okay with watching others get the red carpet rolled out for them. It’s okay if I readjust my relationship after such behavior. If I give my time, if I give me, somewhere and feel like an outsider no matter what I do then there is absolutely no reason for me to stay and keep trying to connect.

It’s unfair to ask WOC to fix what happened in the RWA and it’s unfair to ask us to keep showing up to places we don’t feel safe in. Asking for an invitation is to be vulnerable but so is participation. If you participate then you’re opening yourself up to be rejected. And while it’s important to try out new things and keep an open mind it’s also important to read the signs and put yourself first by noping TF out of there. No one who values themselves would stay, or be expected to either. It’s pretty wild for me to have even tried but here we are. Milan’s tweet and subsequent Wonder Woman levels of strength and composure have reminded me of that simple truth.

I am worth a lot. WOC are worth a lot. And we owe it to no one to participate in things that diminish our sense of worth. Before this whole ridiculous witch hunt of a debacle, I was already doing the work of withdrawing from groups and people that did not contribute to my sense of well being and happiness but I am more committed now than ever before. I hope other AOC in romance do the same. I aim for carefree and happy this 2020, and organizations like the RWA have no place in that story. My story like so many other AOCs deserves to be about the people and places that make us happy, that lift us up, and make us stronger. I sincerely hope 2020 is a restorative year and a year of joy for other AOCs.

I hope they put themselves first always. 

We deserve the world. We deserve HEAs. We deserve to feel safe. Anything less is unacceptable.

*I mentioned I submitted to the RITAs. It goes without saying that I’m not about that lifestyle and am withdrawing my historical novel Heart and Hand from the competition that’s as hollow and meaningless as the RWA now feels. 

The post “They do not get our joy anymore, people.” appeared first on Romance Novelist.

Y’all. OKAY.

Where to begin with this book? This book pulled me apart and then put me back together again, only to drop my ass and break me before making me beg for more. I mean that in all the best ways.

Tasha L. Harrison has written an achingly beautiful and utterly lush small-town romance that was sweet and familiar in the kind of way that had me smiling long after I was forced to stop my binge read. You better believe I powered through this book like it was my damn job. I haven’t been this excited by a book in a very long while, so let’s dive into this bad boy shall we?

A Taste of Her Own Medicine is an older woman/younger man steamy as hell romance with two major players in a cast of richly developed characters: Sonja “Soni” Watts is a 40-year-old recently divorced mother of two teens. She’s a woman on the upward move after her husband filed for divorce and changed the comfortable world Sonja had grown accustomed to. Sonja has it on her mind to open an apothecary of sorts, the skill of herbalism and Gullah culture running deep in her veins from her family. Naturally, Soni wants to share this with the world but is scared of what that means. I get it. Change is scary, it’s almost debilitating when also navigating life after a divorce.

SIDE NOTE: I should know, because I, like Sonja have a divorce under my belt. The world was a fragile place then, everything feeling like it wasn’t quite real, me feeling like I didn’t know who I was or what the rules of society were after withstanding what felt like an atomic bomb detonation. I cannot sing the praises of Tasha for NAILING this in her writing. The insecurities and questions that made Sonja doubt herself read true and this book is a stunning look at what it’s like post-divorce for a woman with so much to give left in her.

Sonja takes her cute self to the Entrepreneur Academy for a six-week business class and that is where we meet the most delicious hero I ever set my figurative eyes on Atlas James. *inserts fanning self* This beautiful man is the stuff dreams are made of. From the start, he’s captivated by Sonja and makes no bones about it. She’s the only woman he sees when she walks into a room, hers is the only smile worth taking to heart, her dreams the only ones he’s tryna make happen. Understandably, Sonja is taken aback by Atlas’s interest. He’s 10 years younger than her and has shoulders in step with his namesake. The boy is thicc and thriving, okay? But never in all of that does Atlas waver in his feelings or attitude towards her. He pursues her in a genuine and natural way that just flows between the two of them. No pressure, no bullshit, no bait and switch.

Atlas James is a man that knows what he’s about and it’s Soni. I have to say that was so beautiful to watch unfold on the page. The steadfast desire from Atlas hit right with the journey Soni was on in finding herself and her way to a life she wanted for herself and her children. Through conflicts with family, friends, and business decisions, Soni became more herself with each and every interaction she had with Atlas, the most patient and sexually giving hero that was ever written for anyone’s pleasure ever.

There are plenty of erotic and creative scenes involving such places as a Subaru (I need one of those cars), a greenhouse, a lounge chair in a garden that is forever in my heart of hearts, but all of that was given heart by the small-town world Tasha L. Harrison crafted around Soni and Atlas. I’m talking serious world-building, I could see the streets and felt like I knew the people and understood their reasons and personalities. This was my first book by Harrison, but you best believe she’s a one-click all day, every day, for me now.

Look, do yourself a favor. Buy this book and devour it like I did. You’ll be so glad you did. I pinky swear it.

Avail on Amazon and Kindle Unlimited.

The post A Taste of Her Own Medicine by Tasha L. Harrison appeared first on Romance Novelist.

Do all the romance books you pick up lose your attention? Storylines just kind of seem tired and just kind of meh? All avid romance readers know this feeling.

You know what this feeling is? A reading slump.

Well, how about a book that’s guaranteed to smash that reading slump into a million little tiny pieces and leave you giddy? Allow me to introduce Rebekah Weatherspoon’s Xeni!

This book has it all, okay?

IT. HAS. IT. ALL.

We are talking about a massive mountain of a Scotsman with a heart of gold and fluffy bunny slippers with a habit of giving amazing oral and playing the bagpipes. 

After her music legend aunt dies, Xeni Everly-Wilkins finds herself in a small town in Upstate New York. Xeni is a teacher from LA and out of her depth in the small-town world her aunt left behind, or at least she is until she claps eyes on Mason McInroy.  The pair are instantly drawn to each other, and due to her aunt’s creative last will and testament are on the receiving end of a marriage of convenience that promises the couple a massive cash payday.

But on the condition that they marry, and stay that way for a whole 30 days. And what a 30 days it is! I’m pretty sure I was left panting and pulling my own hair by half of the scenes Xeni and Mason shared, because day-ummmm. I can’t scream loudly enough about two MC’s that communicate, bring out the best in the other, and are just so CUTE. SO DAMN CUTE and in the healthiest of ways.

This book is full of amazing and lovely surprises such as two openly and unashamed bi-sexual characters, a witchy lady lead, a non-toxic man wholly comfortable letting his love interest flip the script in bed.

Mix in a family feud, drama to the nines in the form of mother-daughter moments/what it means to have this relationship, life-changing secrets and the biggest no shame zone I’ve ever enjoyed in a romance book, and you have the measure of this book.

Xeni is a goddamn delight. Read it now.

Avail on Amazon 

This book is #2 in the Loose Ends series, but can be read as a stand-alone!

The post Xeni (Loose Ends #2) By Rebekah Weatherspoon appeared first on Romance Novelist.

I’ve been an avid reader all of my life and romance has always had a special place in my heart. But here’s the thing, for all the books I read as a child, a teenager, and later as a young woman, I hardly saw myself reflected in the pages. And romance? Don’t even get me started.

Romance was the sort of thing I devoured but also skimmed over character descriptions of blue eyes, fine-boned heroines, and nothing but blond hair with *shudder* creamy skin. Who made that a thing? Probs the dairy industry with all the milky and creamy skin that was being fondled on my pages. I’m a Latinx woman, Spanish lives on my tongue, my eyes are dark, the food I know is flavored by the spices born in other countries, other continents, borders mean something different to me, the faces I grew up with were mixed of all shades. But on the page, the world seemed to be one flat beige note.

Fiction is supposed to be a place to escape to, somewhere the real world can’t touch you, but for me, it was a tough line to walk with every story serving up reasons for me to be both happy and sad. 

Happy because I was getting to see new places and have new experiences through the eyes of the leads, but sad because no one ever resembled me and mine. As a teenager I accepted what I was given, thinking that it was just the way it was but it motivated me to write. I wrote my own stories with dark-skinned men and women, heads full of rizos and locs, people that were complex and frivolous, in possession of agency and dreams. 

They weren’t perfect but they were real. Or as real as any fictional character had the right to be.

My love of writing never left me but life got in the way and I stopped writing fiction when I decided to get after my 4-year. I went on to get a BA in Soviet Military History from Kansas State University, and then a little later an MA in 19th century American History from The University of Alabama. It was during my Master’s that I really thought on what I wanted to do with my life because while I went into my graduate program with the goal of becoming a professor, I graduated knowing one definitive fact about myself: Ph.D. life was not for me.

Now let me explain this decision. It wasn’t that history wasn’t for me because I wasn’t into history. I am so into history it hurts. I wasn’t into a PhD track for a myriad of reasons centering around the problems of academia., which is a whole different blog post so I’ll stick to my topic. While I was going after my degrees, I learned a whole damn lot about myself and the world my ancestors moved through.

First: I’m a Latinx with slave ancestry. I found the bills of sale in Alabama archives that showed me my people’s journey from the Dutch Antilles to Georgia, then Alabama, then off to Texas. It was surreal because it had always been talked about in my family, but in hushed tones and with a note of shame that I didn’t understand.

Second: On the whole, my family’s immigration story is something no one wrote down. And that means to a majority of history enthusiasts it’s not significant, right? They want documents and other bullshit, maybe a neat little narrative and plaque to commemorate the event. The lived and oral memory of a people not registering as “factual” for them. I could write a dissertation about the damage untrained history buffs have done to what the idea of history is.

Third: I am the first in my family to attend college, the only to attain anything beyond a certification. Four-year degrees and graduate programs were not things discussed in my family. Ever. This is very important because public K-12 education and what is out in the masses has shaped my family’s idea of our history. Suddenly the shame and hushed tones made a hell of a lot of sense but it took six years of school and two degrees for that to happen.

Lastly: I’m not here for any goddamn shame because the truth is that my ancestors were brave. 

I left my graduate program with my degree in hand and knowing that words have power. Fiction was going to be the way that I did something about how people who looked like me, had similar histories and communities, saw themselves. I was going to use the education that I had, a degree with a concentration in the Reconstruction Era–that magically misunderstood period following the Civil War. That Era of unrealized potential when anything was possible regarding the future of race and citizenship in our country for the sheer fact that the laws against or for people and rights did not exist.

Hell, laws banning interracial marriage were suspended in all southern states save Georgia at the end of the Civil War.  The Reconstruction Era brought us thrilling political appointments such as not one but two African-American senators, 1870-71 and 1875-1881, respectively.

We would not have the next African-American senator until 1967.

Think on that. 1967. ONE NINE SIX SEVEN.

My points is that the Reconstruction Era was a big-time where the freed community was making some serious moves. Colleges and even whole towns were being created to house three million people who were for the first time categorized as PEOPLE. My family was among those facing down the unknown and I couldn’t be prouder of them. But just because my family and the rest of the freed community were now free, were seen as people, and could choose so much more than they had been allowed as someone’s property, that didn’t mean they were given a world of rainbows and open doors. They had to kick down every “open” door, force themselves through the inch gap of that door and make most of what those in power classified as freedom and choice. But inch or not, they persevered, they survived, they got on and here I am.

And let me tell you, I am very, very interested in all the years between emancipation and now because it wasn’t all bad. There was love, laughter, friendship, family, homes were built and babies born, it wasn’t all tears and pain.

It couldn’t be.

I refuse to believe that it was, just the way I refuse to accept white savior “feel good” stories, or torture porn narratives. My people existed as more than slaves, as more than drunk Mexican stereotypes in smokey bars and gunfights. Expecting them to only exist as flat one-dimensional paper cutouts is pure fantasy. 

Black and brown people had heart and dreams. They had good days and happiness. But you know what? 

They deserved a whole hell of a lot better than the world they were given and that, that, is why I write historical romance. I gravitate towards low angst historical because the world I’m writing, the stories I’m telling? It’s the world as I wish it had been for them. It’s also a world entirely possible because remember how I mentioned that the Reconstruction Era was a time of crazy mad potential?

Yup.

It could have happened, it did happen…maybe? Maybe not.

But on that maybe note I want to ask a very important question: Why is it okay for us to read historical romance by the ton featuring white women living outlandish fantasies? There are like seven Dukes running around at any one time in history, even I know that and I’m an Americanist, not Europeanist, but we are supposed to believe that every time a wallflower or out to pasture debutante turned around she spilled her sherry on one? 

How come it’s okay and accepted to read about white women solving mysteries with naught but a hat pin and some weird animal companion or mouthy side-kick, you know in a time where women asserting themselves was frowned upon. Like where are the chaperones in these books? If everyone is going to be ruined how come there isn’t more of the REAL consequences of ruination being demanded in the name of historically accurate rather than the rose-colored absolutely fantastical versions historical romance, regency, in particular, is famous for? 

Don’t get me wrong. I will deep throat a hot ruination regency  faster than you can blink because I’m not here for a long time, I’m here for a good time, baby.

My whole big point on that is why is that accepted as historical romance but anything that features POC living happy lives, living low angst lives, not suffering and just having a grand time doing it is  termed inaccurate when the writer is doing the same thing as all other historical romances are want to do but just with people that aren’t white or hetero?

It’s a double standard. It’s gross. It needs to stop.

I’m not here for it. My books aren’t here for it, and hopefully, Romancelandia will continue to not be here for it either. Until then and well after that I’ll still be writing my historical romance, each one more fun and historically possible as the next, or you know, as possible as any other piece of historical romance written ever.

Because my ancestors deserved better and I’m going to give it to them.

The post Why I Write Historical Romance–My Ancestors Deserved Better appeared first on Romance Novelist.

Okay, first things first, can we just sit and enjoy this joyful sweet cover? Seriously, just looking at this couple makes my heart so happy, because hell yea for love.

Lucy Eden’s novelette An Angel for Daddy had me one-clicking faster than I could blink because do not threaten me with Daddy in a title and think I won’t jump.

And lemme tell you what, the Daddy in this story did not disappoint. Spencer Jones is a single father, a widower who lost his wife, Sarai to cancer. Together the couple made Nina, an absolute bundle of love and excitement that had me giggling throughout this book.

Ruby Hayes is a hardworking teacher who loves her job, her father, and is focused on getting her life back on track. I totally related to Ruby’s willingness to give everything to take care of her aging father who is recovering from a stroke while giving her all to her students. She’s a totally loveable and her character read as authentic and true.

This woman was not looking for love but who can deny Spencer + Nina Jones?

No one. That’s who.

Spencer and Ruby’s story is full of ups and downs, with a little bit of high drama that reminded me of the old soaps I adored watching as a kid, which was perfect because I loved it then, and I goddamn loved it now.

I normally don’t like contemporary references to songs or pop culture in my books for the reason that it doesn’t hold up years later, but here it worked well and I felt like it grounded me in Spencer and Ruby’s world in a way that made it feel truly real. It was like I knew these people and I was laughing along with them and rooting for their beautiful love story that was just steamy enough to make me blush.

FYI: Their first kiss will make you sigh and vow to finish the book in one sitting.

This novelette delivers a HEA that satisfies and makes me so happy and excited for what I hope is the next in the series because there are some truly wonderful secondary characters that shine.

Rating: FIVE BIG STARS OF HELL YES.

Available on Amazon

The post An Angel for Daddy by Lucy Eden appeared first on Romance Novelist.

Okay, first things first, can we just sit and enjoy this joyful sweet cover? Seriously, just looking at this couple makes my heart so happy, because hell yea for love.

Lucy Eden’s novelette An Angel for Daddy had me one-clicking faster than I could blink because do not threaten me with Daddy in a title and think I won’t jump.

And lemme tell you what, the Daddy in this story did not disappoint. Spencer Jones is a single father, a widower who lost his wife, Sarai to cancer. Together the couple made Nina, an absolute bundle of love and excitement that had me giggling throughout this book.

Ruby Hayes is a hardworking teacher who loves her job, her father, and is focused on getting her life back on track. I totally related to Ruby’s willingness to give everything to take care of her aging father who is recovering from a stroke while giving her all to her students. She’s a totally loveable and her character read as authentic and true.

This woman was not looking for love but who can deny Spencer + Nina Jones?

No one. That’s who.

Spencer and Ruby’s story is full of ups and downs, with a little bit of high drama that reminded me of the old soaps I adored watching as a kid, which was perfect because I loved it then, and I goddamn loved it now.

I normally don’t like contemporary references to songs or pop culture in my books for the reason that it doesn’t hold up years later, but here it worked well and I felt like it grounded me in Spencer and Ruby’s world in a way that made it feel truly real. It was like I knew these people and I was laughing along with them and rooting for their beautiful love story that was just steamy enough to make me blush.

FYI: Their first kiss will make you sigh and vow to finish the book in one sitting.

This novelette delivers a HEA that satisfies and makes me so happy and excited for what I hope is the next in the series because there are some truly wonderful secondary characters that shine.

Rating: FIVE BIG STARS OF HELL YES.

Available on Amazon

The post Book Adoration–An Angel for Daddy by Lucy Eden appeared first on Romance Novelist.