Sarah MacLean
Sarah MacLean
Sarah MacLeanis a New York Times bestselling American author of young adult novels and romance novels. Her first adult romance novel, Nine Rules to Break When Romancing a Rake debuted on the New York Times Bestseller List, where it stayed for four weeks. Since February 2014, MacLean has written a monthly romance novel review column for The Washington Post. She is a two-time winner of the Romance Writers of America RITA Award for Best Historical Romance for A Rogue by...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionAuthor
Date of Birth17 December 1978
CountryUnited States of America
There is perhaps no more rewarding romance heroine than she who is not expected to find love. The archetype comes in many disguises - the wallflower, the spinster, the governess, the single mom - but always with one sad claim: Love is not in her cards.
No matter how troubled a character's history, romance novels tell us, love can be built upon it, and happily-ever-after can result. What's more, the darker the past, the brighter the future - and the better the read.
Of all the myriad ways we define love, there is perhaps none more honest and powerful than this: Great love is rooted in great partnership.
Romance readers love a wealthy hero, and why not? There's value in a man able to hire a helicopter, a coach and six horses, or a collection of werewolves to do his bidding - and the bidding of the lucky woman on his arm.
When it comes to love, the English language bears no shortage of cliches.
The best romance writers know there's nothing that builds conflict or makes a gentleman of a rogue more quickly than responsibility.
One of the most common criticisms of romance is that the genre is too prescribed: If every romance novel ends happily ever after, don't the stories lack complexity? Don't the readers get bored?
That first meeting - the one where the hero and heroine start the slow burn that takes the whole story to turn into true love - is the single most important part of the whole book. Nail it, and you've won yourself readers.
There is a whole generation of romance readers and writers who suffer from what I like to think of as 'Thorn Birds' Fever.
Alas, summer sun can't last forever. The days will grow cooler and shorter, and our skin will once again pale.
At the heart of every successful romance novel lies the evolution of its characters. Through love, heroes and heroines grow not only into a perfect match, but into stronger, better, more admirable people.
As a romance novelist, I have a rather skewed view of babies. You see, they don't typically fit into the classic structure of the romance novel - romance is about two people finding each other and falling in love against insurmountable odds. Babies... well... babies are complicated.
I want to wake up one morning and know how to write page one, or page 10, or page 250. But I never seem to know how to do it. Every book is different and takes a different structure, style, process, etc. And relearning how to write is where the insanity comes from.
In books by women and for women, it should come as no surprise that heroines are the heroes of the action, finding themselves, their power and their future through love.