Robyn Carr

After finishing a good book, do you find yourself wanting to learn a little bit about the author? Do you want to know what other books the author has written? Are you reading a series and want to know the titles in sequence? Well, most authors are really into social media and have their own blogs, facebook accounts, and twitter accounts. Some of the author’s blogs are wonderfully entertaining, funny, and loaded with personal information. Some authors even have give-aways, usually books, or bags – even dinner with the author. They also list where they will be personally appearing. They let you into their personal lives, even sharing pictures of their families or vacations they have taken. Do you wonder what authors are reading? They’ll tell you – even promoting and recommending other authors’ books. Romance authors really enjoy their readers and are willing to share just about anything with them. Romance authors are also a very tight knit group. Even though they live all over the country, they form very close friendships among themselves. For example, author Kristan Higgins’ husband traveled out West to attend a ceremony for fallen firefighters (he is a firefighter here in Connecticut) and he actually stayed with author Robyn Carr’s family.

Romance authors give us insight to how they came about writing their novels. Sometimes, they put a call out for readers to suggest names for upcoming characters. Authors read every comment a reader makes and sometimes write novels based on what their readers are looking for. If you have a favorite author, it’s easy to just google their name and see what their website has to offer. Below are two of my favorite Romance authors websites. I try to read them once a week because they almost always give me a good laugh.

Jill Shalvis – Her site is very informative and her blog and facebook page are hysterical! She shares a lot about her daily life and she posts lots of pictures, including what some of the heroes of her books might look like. She has been reprimanded a few times by facebook for posting ‘too hot to handle’ photos! The library has a great assortment of her books here.

Kristan Higgins – Her site is also very informative. She and Jill Shalvis have similar writing styles in books and their blogs/facebook are quite similar. They are also very good friends even though Kristan lives here in Connecticut and Jill on the West Coast in a small town in the Sierra Mountains. The library also has a great assortment of her books here.

Some other interesting Romance authors websites are:

Robyn Carr – website library catalog

Suzanne Brockmann – website library catalog

Susan Elizabeth Phillips – website library catalog

Julie Ann Walker – website library catalog

Elle Kennedy – website library catalog

Robyn Carr published her first book in 1978, but it took her 30 years to make the New York Times Best Seller List. She is a pioneer of the small-town romance genre.

She married her high school sweetheart during the peak of the Vietnam War. She studied nursing in college, but couldn’t practice because of their constant moving between military bases. To occupy her time, she took up reading and fell in love with romances. She feels romances are important because people need a safe place to deal with emotions they’re stuck with, and a book is a safe place to do that. After much trial and error, she settled upon writing contemporary romances. Her novels deal with real issues in a realistic manner. She is strongly drawn to issues and causes that honor men and women who serve our country. Her stories are about strong, capable women who have issues that every woman faces at some point in her life.

She is the author of the very popular Virgin River series. It is a blend of romance and women’s fiction that entertains as well as addresses sensitive issues, such as domestic violence, health issues, and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. It takes place in a fictional town in the Redwood forests of California. The series centers around men of honor and the women they love. The first book of the series, Virgin River, was published in 2007. There are 20 books in the series. They are:

Virgin River
Shelter Mountain
Whispering Rock
A Virgin River Christmas
Second Chance Pass
Temptation Ridge
Paradise Valley
Under the Christmas Tree (novella)(not available)
Forbidden Falls
Angel’s Peak
Moonlight Road
Midnight Confessions (novella)(not available)
Promise Canyon
Wild Man Creek
Harvest Moon
Bring Me Home for Christmas
Hidden Summit
Redwood Bend
Sunrise Point
My Kind of Christmas

Ms. Carr has spent most of 2012 writing a brand new series, Thunder Point. It is set in a picturesque coastal community on the Oregon coast. Like her Virgin River series, this series will make you laugh, sigh, and fall in love with a small town filled with people you’ll never forget. Book one – The Wanderer – is out now. It will be followed by The Newcomer in July and The Hero in September.