ROMANCE WRITERS (Part 1)

Reid Lance Rosenthal:  This is Reid Lance Rosenthal, On the Right Side Radio, broadcasting to you at a KGAB AM 650 on your dial Cheyenne, Wyoming, and the Townsquare Network serving the Intermountain West, and KFEZ Colorado Springs, Southern Colorado, Northern New Mexico, welcome Rocky Mountains. And, we have a special treat for you today, you know, last week you were subjected to my crooning Christmas Carols in our Special Christmas Show with some of the words changed. You’ll die laughing, go back to the Archives and take a listen, get a grin.

But today, in the New Year spirit since we have a new year coming we have a divided country intentionally, you’ve heard my opinions on that. There are certain universal energies which bridge gaps between people, and I don’t care what race, what culture, what creed, what religion, what gender, or what political persuasion, and that’s love and romance. That’s right, love and romance.
Think about it. Everybody listening to you, listening to this show right now, everybody has had a romance; maybe more than one, maybe you’ve got several going right now. The bottom line is it brings everyone together. It knows no political persuasion. And on the show today with me, I have four great romance writers who write in all sorts of genres. They are members of the Utah Romance Writers Group, which is a branch of Romance Writers Association of America, thousands of romance writers literally from all around the world.

I mean, one of the most noted, if not the most noted organization for romance authors to, anywhere in the world. And just like Western Writers Association, as Western Writers and Historical Fiction Writers Association writes historical fiction, I’m a member of both those groups too. The Romance Writers Association of American brings lots of smiles, lots of tingles and lots of grins to lots of people.       

In fact, $1.3 billion in romance books were purchased last year. So, there is a lot of people writing romance. And, you know, with that kind of interest and intrigue – and by the way guys, don’t turn off. Don’t groan and hit the dial because romance is a growing segment of male readership. You know why? Because there is lots more action, there’s lots more realism. These are not the [butters reapers] of your mama’s romance. All of these girls that you are going to be meeting today and you’ve heard insensately about my books. I won’t bore you with them but all these guys you are going to be meeting today write in different styles of romance. And many of them will appeal to male readers, just as my books are 46% male readership. So, stay tuned because it’s kind of fun. And, I’m going to let each of these terrific ladies introduce themselves. Clancy, why do you go first? Tell us a little bit about what you write.

Clancy Metzger:  Okay. My name is Clancy Metzger and I am on Facebook, Twitter and my website is Clancy Metzger C-L-A-N-C-Y, M-E-T-Z-G-E-R. I write contemporary books, I write in-contemporary, I write paranormal and action.

Reid:  Clancy, you’re …

So, one that’s coming out in January is a contemporary action called This Side of Legal. I write everything from steamy all the way to the erotic romance, but it is romance. So, while there maybe lots of heated action there is, also, it’s all about the romance. It’s about the relationship. This Side of Legal is …

Reid:  Excuse me, Clancy.

Clancy:  … about the men. All the main characters are the men. They are pilots. They are men to men and the women are the loving trips. So, that’s not your typical romance, I think, because generally it’s the women and the men are the loving trips, so these are the guy stories.

Reid: So, Clancy writes books, guys, about pilots and macho-men, okay.  And, these are real guys with real interests you’d like them. And girls, obviously, you know what’s not to like about pilots and those types of guys, right? So, Lisa welcome to the show.

Lisa Deon:  Yes Reid.

Reid:  Tell us about what you write.

Lisa:  Good morning Reid. Thank you for having me. My name is Lisa Deon. I write contemporary mainstream with romantic elements. And, all of my stories have people and horses in them. My current novel is called The Carriage Trade and it is about a couple who have had romance in the past but they can’t get the ‘Happily Ever After’ because the woman has brain damage and can’t remember where it began.
 I, also, have a short story on Amazon called Splitting the Difference about a budding romance for two people working together. I am on Twitter as Lisa Deon, Facebook as Lisa Deon and my website is www.lisadeon.com.

Reid:  Super Lisa, sounds great. I feel sorry for that poor guy, you know, he is all invested in this girl and she can’t remember him. I love it. It’s terrific. Alright Jenifer, tell us about you.

Jennifer Beckstrand:  Well, I’m Jenifer Beckstrand. I write Amish romance. Amish is a very big category in the Christian fiction market right now. My first two books are Kate’s Song and Rebecca’s Rose.  And my third book Mary Misquote comes out in March. And, they are not just written for Amish people. They are about Amish people and have a really wide group of readers that love them. They are clean inspirational romances and they have – but they do have a lot of romance. The Amish …

[Crosstalk]

Reid:  And, clean inspirational, folks means PG.

Jennifer:  That’s right. There is a lot of romance and there is a lot of tension but no sex in this, and also a lot of inspiration. There is, definitely, a Christian message that goes along with these books. But, my main focus is the romance. I love romance and the Amish have a very simple way of life but they still have very similar concerns, and interests, and pains, and sorrows that everyone else does. And, you can find me at jenniferbeckstrand.com. It’s J-E-N-N-I-F-E-R, B-E-C-K-S-T-R-A-N-D.

Reid:  Super, thank you Jennifer. How about you, Joy? Tell us about you.

Joy Spraycar:  Hi, my name is Joy Spraycar. Thanks Reid for having me today. I write action adventure with paranormal romance involved. I have a website, it’s JoySpraycar.com www.joyspraycar.com . I have three books out. My newest one is called Tawny’s Ghost and it’s sort of a young adult romance about a girl who’s been haunted by a ghost.
Now, this story is inspired by a real life experience that my own daughter had in our house. So, it’s kind of special to me. Anyway, it’s a mystery kind of thing where she tries to find out who this ghost is in order to help him move on and there is this twist to it. It will keep you laughing and crying and in the end, you will be glad that the ghost and the girl can have a relationship.
Also, I do write urban fancy and so my other book that just came out last year is called Phantom Wolves and it’s also an action adventure. Now, the men readers that I have absolutely love my books because mostly they are action adventure. This is a story about a girl who lives in a small town in Montana, of course, that’s where I wish I lived, but you know, hey. Anyway, she loves her small town life and she finds that it is being threatened by a man who is cloning dragons. If you like Jurassic Park, this is kind of a long those lines. And Kat finds that she has a family she didn’t know about. And, her unknown ally that comes to her aid is the coveted black dragon. If you like action adventure you will love Phantom Wolves.

Reid:  Right.

Joy:  My other book is Quicksilver. Yes.

Reid:  Joy, I got a quick question for you. So, like in your ghost love story is the love like misty?

Joy: Is it misty? Oh yeah, for a long time it’s misty.

Reid:  You know, via several mist of the ghost. I’m kind of interested in that myself. I would love to see the way you wrote that. So, please continue. I interrupted.

Joy:  Oh that’s fine. And, my first book is called Quicksilver and it’s a werewolf story, kind of. Different in that they get together early on in the book ferries, dreamt about this man her whole life. She is married to an alcoholic husband and when he runs into this man’s car she sees a man from her dreams coming on the hospital on a stretcher. And they get together and in order to have a real family they have to hunt down the man who turned him into a werewolf. So, it’s a big hunt and kill story. The men love that part of the book. Of course, there is the romance involved. All mine I would say are PG13. I’ve had people say, “Wow! Those are really steamy” and I’m like, “That’s your own imagination. I guess what happens behind the door is all in your head.”
Anyway, then my new one that will be coming out this year is called Changing up the Glads and it is actually an interracial gladiator romance.

Reid:  Okay. So, folks you’ve heard about my books. And by the way, I want to thank – I went through 2,000 cards on my recent book tour over the last 25 days and I want thank the hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of folks who bought the books and are starting the series, and the hundreds and hundreds that came in to say “hi”, grab Book 2, reserve Book 3. And they’re historical westerns with a strong romantic, shall we say, tinge. And my books, as you know, are kind of PG’d R. I mean, it’s real Wild West in all sorts of ways, Threads West: An American Saga, they’ve been #1 National Best-sellers and won some awards.

And all these authors on here, I think you’re getting a feel for this, right? You have Clancy who kind of writes the steamy erotic, paranormal type stuff. You have Lisa who is writing contemporary action. You have Jennifer who’s writing inspirational, which is what’s called in the business. But, you know, from an Amish point of view, a nice clean, clean pros, none of the steamy scenes that you might find in some of the other books. You have Joy who is writing paranormal type adventures in the West.
So, this is a huge set of genres that appeal to a wide range of people but you know they all have one thing in common; we’re going to talk about that. Number one, they have happy endings.  Number two, they have that universal energy of romance, some to varying degrees and some in varying ways but, you k now, romance is a universal energy. And, I think people liking happy endings, is a universal hope.

And, they also, have values. Okay. They have values and the values are; family, tradition, relationships, man-woman good communication and interaction. And they transcend, as I said at the beginning of the program, political persuasions. And I really think, I know it sounds crazy but I think romantic type novels, the types that we are talking about today are one of the platforms that can be used to bring people together.  There is nothing like a liberal and a conservative discussing a good book that they both liked.

I will tell you that in my book signings I’ve talked to several thousand people over the last month. Liberals, conservatives reading my books, reading other books and I’ve gotten some great conversation. And, what gave me the idea for this [jaw] was the fact that I had a girl in Moscow, Idaho who definitely left December, we got in a wonderful discussion. She loves my books and, you know, my books obviously are written by a guy who is, shall we say, leans right rather than left.  But, you know, that book bridged the gap between she and I. If we had been sitting at a coffee house having a strictly political discussion, we probably both would have thrown the saucers at each other. But, in talking about the book and using it as common ground we bridged that gap. I had a better understanding of how she thought. She had a better understanding of how I thought.
So, what I want to talk about now is, kind of, shall we say, the values in America that we can use in this platform to bring people together and end this division, because, I think we are all very well aware that we are divided country and we are divided on purpose, right? A bundle of sticks is much harder to break than a single twig. And divided we fall, united we stand.

Now, the folks who divide us know this for a fact. It’s one of the reasons they employ division. They employ division to divide us and distract us from the issues at hand, which must be dealt with as a country and they use division to gunner votes and to maintain their power. And in the cases of many, they are corruption. If we can get – if we can find a common platform such as these types of books that these wonderful girls write and we can understand how the basic values of America, how the basic universal energies that affect us all left, right, in between, doesn’t matter, I think we can make some progress. I really do. And that discussion in Moscow, Idaho and that was one of scores I had with folks of opposite political persuasions over the last 25 days, has convinced me of that fact.
So, ladies I’ll tell you what I want to talk about. Let’s talk about family values a little bit. Lisa, talk about family values in your books. And, you know, family does not have to be the edge oh family. It can be the contemporary family. It can be a man and a woman without kids. It can be a travelling couple. I mean, do your books kind of bring out those types of values? I mean the sanctity of a relationship between a man and a woman?

Lisa:  Well, Reid my books have a lot to do with community. They are an urban family. You can’t always have the family you were born with, which the people in my novels are the only people left of their families.  So, they create a family and their family is there to back them up and help them through the processes that they are going through.