February, the month of romance. Personally, setting a day aside in a month when lovers are supposed to acknowledge each other in romantic terms is silly. There, I said it. Bite me! My son thinks Hallmark is the smartest company on the planet. They have a poem for every day of the year (birthdays, you know) and now charge upwards of three or four dollars to say what a smart man can say in a few words. Let’s not forget florists and supermarkets who peddle their rose bouquets and planters. Oh, and add jewelry stores, because nothing beats a diamond to show how much you love the woman in your life. And it’s always the woman. How much advertising do you see for the man? Not much. Are we that conditioned? The point is, shouldn’t we show our affection to those we love daily? My husband didn’t like having certain days to buy me things. Granted, he was raised in a country where there is no Valentine’s Day, so it was never that important to him. He did buy me flowers and a card, and we somet...

Ah… Valentine's Day! Bring on the romance and the love, the chocolate, and the lacy, cutout paper hearts. Sooooo lovely! (By Chordboard - Self, from material in my possession., Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=4310800) ] --> But I'm a mystery author, so I can't help but think of the "dark side" as well: The downside of love—jealousy, possessiveness, obsession.  The poisoned box of candy.  The scissors, sharp enough to cut paper, but maybe sharp enough for other, more deadly uses…  ... And now for the dark side. "Jealousy" by Edvard Munch, 1895 (Edvard Munch [Public domain]) Whether you prefer the light-hearted romance or the emotional ruin of this special day dedicated to lovers—or something in between—there's something for you to read as the following lists show… Let's start with some cozy-with-murder mysteries, provided by The Cozy Mystery List . Here's the latest list from the ever-...

February is Love Month on The Blood Red Pencil. Of course, it’s Valentine’s Day month. I have to admit I’m not the mushy type. I don’t leave little hearts or xoxo on my notes, never did. I don’t do squiggly hugs either, though I do write the word when I want to hug someone in person but can't. Hugs. I love my family and love my friends. I have friends I’ve known for almost my whole life. We stay in contact and still care what happens to each other, maybe more than ever now that we’re older. We’ve been through marriages, divorces, births, serious illnesses, and death, but our bonds are still strong. They’re family and in some ways closer because we knew each other through grade school, teen years, through schoolgirl crushes, loves, college, travels, and beyond. We were silly and stupid and crazy together and did things I’d never admit to my own children. One made me promise I wouldn’t tell her son that she drove 100 miles an hour down the beach road with me riding shotgun. Of c...

Hello dear readers and welcome to another day of frivolity. Since Valentine's Day is swiftly approaching, I thought we could have some fun with love and cupid and all that.    First, this joke from Guy-Sports.com : Mike walked into a post office just before Valentine's day, and he couldn't help noticing a middle-aged, balding man standing in a corner sticking "Love" stamps on bright pink envelopes with hearts all over them. Then the man got out a bottle of perfume from his pocket and started spraying scent over the envelopes. By now Mike's curiosity had gotten the better of him, and so he asked the man why he was sending all those cards. The man replied, "I'm sending out 500 Valentine cards signed, 'Guess who?'" "But why?" asked Mike. "I'm a divorce lawyer," the man replied. The following are a random sampling of funny, and serious, quotes one can find on the Internet. "My boyfriend told me I ...

Venus and Cupid by Lambert Sustris It’s almost time for Valentine’s Month and once again, we plan to focus on the romance genre. Well, we might even get a bit spicier than that and explore the topic of sex in literature. Let this be a GRAPHIC CONTENTS warning of things to come, readers! I've been thinking a lot about romance novels over the past few months, though not exactly by intent. Researching a mystery series, my male protagonist took over and the plot began to take a decidedly sensual turn. He was so fixated on his heroine that I decided to write a standalone novella dealing strictly with the romance he was having with this new-found love. I realized the real stories in the mystery books wouldn't get told until their love life was a bit more settled. As I wrote scene after increasingly torrid love scene, I started thinking a lot about human sexuality, sexual objectification, and the differences between romance, erotica, and pornography. I have an education in fine ...

Since tomorrow is Valentine's Day, I thought it would be fun to share some thoughts on love from one of our frequent guests at The Blood Red Pencil, Slim Randles . Slim writes a popular column, Home Country and offers it up just for pure enjoyment. In the week before Valentine’s Day, Marvin Pincus had two new customers for his (free of charge, of course) love advice and fly-tying consultation services. He tied up a midge for one client, a salmon streamer wrapped in lead for another, and wished them well. This was his busy time, of course. He knew another would come in mid-May, in desperate anticipation of June weddings.  “Marge,” he said, sipping coffee and looking out at the snow, “I think we need a vacation.” Marjorie Pincus smiled. They’d both been retired and on permanent “vacation” for years now. “I’ll go if it means I don’t have to make the beds or do the dishes,” she said. “The only thing is, what if someone needs the fly tying love advice service while we’r...

THE LOVE SCENE Ah, February—the season of the Valentine.  When all thoughts turn to love (or lust!). But with books and stories, we almost always have a “valentine” moment.  No matter in which genre you’re writing, a love scene is almost always included, be it Thriller or Mystery, Fantasy (good grief but vampires seem to have nothing else to do!), Mainstream, etc., etc., at some point our hero gets a breather from his travails and is rewarded by some physical love. And, by golly, most of the time he deserves it! Or should—if not, you may have missed a critical element in your storyline and character development. I’m not talking erotica or the graphic sex of Urban Lit, but in just about every other story genre we still need some love. And we don’t have to write actual “sex” either. Until the past decade and a half or so, the physical aspects of Category Romance were alluded to (“he took the ribbon from her hair” and we break for the next scene), or at most stopped with kiss...