Bobbi Dumas

At the end of December, as the world cleaned up wrapping paper and pine needles and prepared to say good-bye to 2015, the romance community had its own bittersweet celebration: Kristan Higgins released Anything For You, the fifth and final title in her excellent and wildly popular Blue Heron series.

We've just bid farewell to October — which made me think of a simply charming romance novel that takes place during the Chicago World's Fair, which lasted over a year and ended at the end of October, 1893.

Deeanne Gist's Tiffany Girl revolves around the glassworkers' strike that threatened Louis ...

Grief is a tricky subject.

It's a tricky subject in real life, because no two people will ever deal with it in exactly the same way, and often we expect people to deal with their grief much differently than they actually do.

I admit, I was anxious to read After ...

Earlier this month, author Lauren Willig released The Lure of the Moonflower, the last of her fantastic, genre-bridging Pink Carnation series.

I call them genre-bridging, because they satisfy romance fans who love the pinch-in-the-chest, soul-satisfying, "all is well in the world" happy-ever-after denouement — but they also have such densely ...

Editor's note: This story was originally published on August 9, 2015.

Fresh air, the smell of pine trees, the sounds of birds chirping and brooks babbling — all of these have helped American city-dwellers unwind for generations. But in the era of Jim Crow segregation, nature's calm also gave African-Americans ...

Pick up a romance novel and you'll often get more than just a pleasant read – many fans of historical romance say their favorite books have given them a new grounding in history and geography by bringing long-lost people and places to life.

So I'd hazard a guess that few ...

Sometimes when I'm talking about romance novels, I try to explain that one of the main reasons I love a good love story — indeed, why many romance fans love them — is because they give us a sense of hope. If these characters can overcome obstacles, become better people, ...

In January, historical romance queen Julia Quinn finished up her latest series, the Smythe-Smith Quartet — and told readers that next, she'd be headed back to her beloved Bridgerton family. Given that all eight Bridgerton siblings already have their own books, I'm not sure how she's going to do it ...

Decades before Fifty Shades of Grey and George R.R. Martin, we had Bertrice Small, the romance legend and industry pioneer who died Tuesday at 77.

Small was part of a group of female writers, known collectively as "The Avon Ladies" (others were greats like Johanna Lindsey and Rosemary Rogers), who ...

So another Valentine's Day is sneaking up on us, and I have to tell you, I'm feeling a little odd. I have now been married 20 years, and while I still love my husband very much, the older I get, the more Valentine's Day seems to be for younger lovers.

Once upon a time, when I was just out of college, I worked in a magical place called the Washington International School. The old Lower School building was a former D.C. public school on Olive Street in Georgetown, drafty and problematic, but full of character — and full of children ...

If you're a fan of the Maisie Dobbs series — and if you're not, I highly recommend you give them a chance — you already know that Jacqueline Winspear has a formidable command of the history of the Great War, and a stunning ability to take some of the most ...

You need not be a druid to feel a sense of magic on Midsummer, the shortest night of the year. As far as we can tell, ancient civilizations around the world celebrated summer and winter solstices as some of their highest holidays, and it makes sense that people who lived ...

There may be no real Chestnut Street in Dublin, but Maeve Binchy made readers feel as if it might be around any corner. Best-selling author Binchy, who died in 2012, was famous for novels which intertwined the lives, loves and relationships of her mostly Irish characters with a lyrical, yet ...

Let's face it: not everyone loves Valentine's Day. But as an unabashed romance fan, I do — and I thought I'd share the love by checking in with some of my favorite romance authors and asking them to share their Valentine traditions, and a few of their favorite romances — ...

A long time ago, in a world before email, cellphones and the World Wide Web, my girlfriends and I had a mantra: "Life is too short for annoying boys."

I was lucky. I met my own Mr. Perfect-For-Me when I was young enough to not feel desperate to find him, ...

I don't remember how old I was when I discovered some of the more harrowing chapters of human history — the Holocaust and American slavery — but I do remember convincing my young self that I would have been brave had I lived in those times. I would have hidden ...

Each May we end the month and begin the summer season with a grateful nod to our veterans, especially those who gave their lives in service to our country. And this year, we mark an anniversary that may not be as obvious as Pearl Harbor or D-Day, but is certainly ...