Fantasy v Reality

I've just been having a fun debate both on Twitter and Facebook about whether a snoring hero is sexy. I read one just recently and it kinda squicked me out. I definitely winced when I read it. And I'm not talking about cute snuffly little noises but loud, hear-from-down-the-hallway snoring.

Why did it make me wince? It's not like men don't snore. Or women for that matter. And I like realism in my books. But clearly, there's a line for me. And snoring is it. Snoring just seems a little too much reality intruding into my fantasy world.


One of the people who left a comment said men shouldn't snore and women shouldn't have a period in the pages of a romance. Now, whilst I agreed about the snoring, I'm not so sure about the other. My Ruby nominated book, Risky Business, features a scene where my heroine gets the period from hell and the hero is so horrified by what she's going through he's utterly lovely and attentive. So obviously we all have different squick factors, different triggers that will tweak our reality antenna.







So the question is do we want our heroes to be the sanitised, fantasy guy - everything we don't have in real life? Or do we want him with a few warts? With some touches that ground him in the real world? Do we want heroes that will burp for example?  Or fart? What about nose picking and ball scratching? Is it okay for them to pick their teeth or try and wiggle out of changing a loaded dirty nappy? Do we want ones with real world sized wangs?

Do we really?


Where's the line? Where's your line?

In romance, how real is too real?

by Robyn Grady



One of the reasons I love romance fiction is the fact that there seems to be a story for everyone! Harlequin offers a wide range of tones, with various levels of sensuality (from sweet to scorching!) as well as lines that provide pure fantasy to real life grit and anywhere in between.

I love fantasy. There seems to be endless variations on the Cinderella theme. The movie Enchanted literally takes the fairytale and drops it dead centre of the realities of New York. An old hobo steals the princess’s tiara. A divorcing couple get nasty at the lawyer’s office. But the flavour is still deliciously light.




Then there’s Nicholas Sparks’s The Notebook (yes, I know he writes ‘love stories’ but the romance in this tale is monumental.) While there are lighter moments, the deeper subject matter propelling this story is dark: unfaithfulness, debilitating illness, treachery on a level that turns your stomach even while you sympathise with the reasoning. The close of the book is poignant – we feel hope and gut-wrenching sadness as well as a frightening sense of: ‘This could happen to anyone. This could happen to me’.

I like light. I love the escape! But I think I like heavy more. Not ‘hand to the brow’ over-the-top drama but fiction reflecting real life issues, particularly in romance where a happy ending is guaranteed no matter how tough the battle to get there.

My latest Presents - Fearless Maverick - is part of an editorial-driven continuity (that is the editors create the characters and general story arcs). Early in the story we discover that the heroine was in an accident and wears a lower-leg prosthesis. Some readers/reviewers loved the story! Romantic Times awarded it four and a half stars and said,
‘This fast-paced romance will grab readers from the start and not let go, with unforgettable characters, excellent witty and descriptive dialogue and a plot that gives us incredible in-depth detail -- it reads like a much longer novel.'

But other readers felt – well, the term I’d use is betrayed. They weren’t happy that a story, which is meant to be filled with high-stakes, should get this close to reality.

I puzzled over the responses to this book being so polarised. They loved it or, well, they didn't. Which leaves me with an interesting question about how to approach future works. But I have to say that I’d much rather have a strong response to my characters and their stories than mediocre ones.

Do you have any examples of what’s too far in romance for your tastes? Or what’s just right!

The Sentinel Mage

by Emily Gee

What I'm reading: The Complete Servant, by Samuel & Sarah Adams (1825)

Watching: Glee

Listening to: Salmonella Dub

Making me smile: The baby sparrows feeding outside my window


The release of my latest fantasy novel, The Sentinel Mage, this month caught me by surprise. I spent endless months plotting and writing it and suddenly -- kaboom -- it's on the shelves and I'm standing there blinking and going What? Already?

The author copies have just arrived and I had that surreal flicking-through-the-pages moment when you see the story that spent so much time in your head actually printed in black and white on the pages of a book. To me, it always looks very one dimensional compared to the 3D colour version that runs like a movie in my head.

The Sentinel Mage is something a new for me ... not only is it the first book in a trilogy, but it has multiple storylines. I wrote each storyline completely separately, from start to finish, and then combined them into a whole, kind of like plaiting flax. (Is that too kiwi a simile? You know what I mean, right?)

My publisher, Solaris, have created wonderful chapter images to separate out the three storylines.

The wolf and flames image marks the mages and Prince Harkeld's story -- which is the story on the back cover blurb.

(In a distant corner of the Seven Kingdoms, an ancient curse festers and grows, consuming everything in its path. Only one man can break it: Harkeld of Osgaard, a prince with mage's blood in his veins. But Harkeld has a bounty on his head -- and assassins at his heels.

Innis is a gifted shapeshifter. Now she must do the forbidden: become a man. She must stand at Prince Harkeld's side as his armsman, protecting and deceiving him. But the deserts of Masse are more dangerous than the assassins hunting the prince. The curse has woken deadly creatures, and the magic Prince Harkeld loathes may be the only thing standing between him and death.)

The sword and crown marks the story of Harkeld's sister, Princess Brigitta, and her armsman, Karel.

Britta and Karel aren't mentioned on the back cover, but I have to confess ... Karel is my favourite character in this book. He's strong, stoic, smart -- and lethal with a sword.


The footprint marks the story of the young orphan, Jaumé, whose story opens the book.

Jaumé is a blacksmith's son, fleeing across a continent ahead of the curse (the poor kid has bare feet -- hence the footprint).



Two of the storylines are going to collide violently in the second book, and all three will be bloodily entwined by the end of the third book, so my flax weaving is going to get pretty complicated. I'm looking forward to the challenge!

I have one copy of The Sentinel Mage to give away. (That's Innis, the shapeshifter, on the cover, by the way.)

Simply tell me what it is about fantasy novels that you enjoy. The magic, the heroism, the battles, the strange and deadly creatures, the passion...

(The first two chapters of The Sentinel Mage are up on my website, www.emilygee.com, if you'd like a sneak peek!)

Rachel Needs Book Advice!

Reading: Zane, The Wild One, Bronwyn Jameson
Watching: Castle
Listening to: The Swingle Sisters
Making me smile: my fireplace

I’ve been reading historicals as my main genre of pleasure for a couple of years now. Thing was, I’d been resisting reading them because I was such a huge Jane Austen fan, and… well, I don’t know what I thought, but once I found them I was hooked and I realized I'd wasted heaps of years in not reading them!

Obviously I’ve been reading other genres in there as well, but more than 50% would have been historicals. I found some fabulous, fabulous authors who are now autobuys.

But I’m starting to get itchy feet.

I’m thinking the next genre I want to fall into will be romantic fantasy. Maybe with some romantic science fiction thrown in. I read a fair bit of fantasy and science fiction when I was a late-teen early-20’s gal—things like, Mists of Avalon (boy did I love that book at the time); Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (laugh? I *still* laugh at lines I read then); Unto Zeor Forever (the first book I remember being obsessed about, and then trying to glom the author, Jacqueline Lichtenberg); Dune (the whole series); plus a heap of Arthur C Clarke and other sci fi big names.

This was before I found romance. And looking back, the only one on the list that’s really a romance (and probably the only one of all the books I read at the time) is Unto Zeor Forever. Interesting that it was the romance that I obsessed abut the most, yes?

Anyway, onto more recent history. A gorgeous friend of mine recently gave me a copy of Finnikin of the Rock. I devoured it - fabulous. And about a year ago I read Thief With No Shadow which blew me away (no surprise that it had 2 Rita nominations, then).

So on the basis of two recent fantasy books that I loved, I think fantasy is my next reading genre. And what I need now are some recommendations!

It’s been so long since I was in this genre that I’m totally out of date. What I’m looking for: a book you loved (I’m looking for the best, people!), one where the romance is front and centre (or at least a big part) and a snappy pace (I’m not as patient as I used to be, and not sure I could handle the chapter’s-worth of explanations of the history / politics of the world).

Know any books that fit this description? *Please* share!!