The Meander Tile of Lisa Greco" Romance of Mythic Identity Book 2 by Andrea Aguillard
Ancient excavations reveal the key to two lovers' identities.
Second generation Italian-American Lisa Greco is about to receive the reward she's worked her head off for--but she's not sure it's what she wants anymore.
She's always postponed exploring her creativity, and discovering her Neapolitan origins. So she throws the dice, and goes to Naples where she meets a mysterious Japanese-Italian professor of mathematics and itinerant tenor who's in search of his own roots. This leads her to do something she's never done before. She takes his hand as he leads her into the darkest recesses of the ancient excavations that reveal the key to both their identities.
It turns out some of the first and most fervent adopters of ebooks still read more digital books than any anyone else.
Those readers are fans of the romance genre, and in this week’s Kindle Chronicles interview
I gained new appreciation and respect for romance by talking with
Jessica Tripler, who covers romance novels and other topics as a Book Riot contributor.
Tripler reads four to six romances a month, along with two or three
novels in other genres. Married and the mother of two boys, she is a
professor of philosophy at a university in Maine, as well as a clinical
ethicist.
Romance is a $1 billion industry that accounts for more than 262
million titles sold each year in the U.S., Tripler told me. She
described the genre as domestic novels that can be “very insightful when
it comes to human psychology, in particular the psychology of desire,
of love, of human relationships, of ethics.”
“I would stand romance writing against any other genres,” Tripler
said. “Like other genres, you can have a terrific example of the genre
and a terrible one. That goes for literary fiction—some literary fiction
is just a real failure.”
What you won’t find in romance novels, according to a definition
Tripler shared from Romance Writers of America, are pessimistic and
emotionally unsatisfying endings. In a romance, you will root for the
hero and heroine (or hero and hero, or heroine and heroine), whose love
relationship will be central to the plot, which ends on an optimistic
and emotionally satisfying note, she said.
Eighty-nine percent of all romance sales are digital, Data Guy of AuthorEarnings reported at the Romance Writers of America annual meeting last month. Tripler on August 11 wrote a BookRiot post suggesting the reasons for that dominance of the genre by e-books.
Among the factors she listed, the desire for privacy is important for
some romance readers, Tripler wrote, but in the podcast interview she
said that is not a big concern for seasoned romance fans.
“Maybe for the person that picks up one romance a year in an
airport,” she suggested, “but most people who read it regularly don’t
really care who sees them reading it.”
That’s not to say that privacy concerns don’t ever lead to a
preference for digital reading, Tripler said, especially for edgy, more
erotic romances which can be inappropriate for children or invite
unwanted attention in public.
Other factors in the lives of busy, multi-tasking women, Tripler
said, are price, portability, convenience, and the ability to hold so
many books on an e-reader at once.
“One piece that gets under-emphasized in these discussions,” she
added, “is that women who adopted digital reading early on were tech
savvy. They were online. They were participating in discussion groups
and felt very comfortable with that technology. And they had money.”
“Romance readers do quite well in terms of income and education, and
they often tend to be partnered up, which usually helps with income,”
Tripler said, “so they had the tech savvy and the money to go ahead and
buy the Kindle or at least know how to get digital books onto their
laptop.”
Of the 75 million Americans who read at least one romance novel a
year, 16 percent or 12 million are men, Tripler said. As preparation for
the interview, I asked her to recommend a romance novel that I might
enjoy reading.
On her suggestion, my wife and I listened to the Audible version of Julie James’s Practice Makes Perfect, a hilarious and tightly plotted legal romance set at a big firm in Chicago. We both loved it.
Other contemporary romance writers that Tripler recommended are Nora
Roberts, Courtney Milan, Molly O’Keefe, Beverly Jenkins, and Farrah
Rochon.
As a philosopher and clinical ethicist, Tripler reads romances from a particular point of view.
“Looking at it from my professional background,” she told
me, “there are always interesting questions about what is the good life,
how do I move forward in an ethical way, what do we owe to each other,
what does it mean to be vulnerable, dependence and independence—these
are all ethical questions that have been interesting to me in my work,
and they play out in very interesting ways in the genre.”
I like to think I went into this interview with an open mind
regarding books of all genres, but I’m here to say that Jessica Tripler
significantly expanded my understanding of why so many millions of
readers, men and women, love a good romance—especially on an e-book.
"This is a story that most adult women will love. The author does an
excellent job of bringing forth the characters of this young woman and
man and then elaborate, thorough descriptions of the countryside, the weather and the plants. I was enthralled with this story." 5 Stars
This book encompasses a beautiful love story and it is like a travelogue of Scotland, for those of us who have never been there. Brae MacKenzie is a successful San Francisco painter, who seems to have it all, but because of family losses during childhood, cannot find happiness within herself, especially after her charismatic husband suddenly dies. She is left with a son, but she has always felt a sense of loss and longing since childhood. Her artistic passion hasn't filled that void, and with the untimely death of her husband, the old pain resurges and her depression becomes deeper and deeper. Brae's father senses his daughter's pain and before she embarks for an exhibit in England, he hands her a family heirloom hidden away for years...a letter with a treasure map, which says: "Since you are still among the living, your heart is not broken...follow the map to Scotland." The London exhibit, in its ultra-chic hollowness, prompts Brae into taking the advice of that bewildering letter. She hops a train for Glasgow. When her train emerges in an ancient Caledonian forest, Brae is pulled enough out of her depression to feel something and she stops at the next station.
She is met by Damon, a well-built young Scot, who although a stranger to her, yet seems to know her. He becomes her personal guide into the myths and history of Scotland, including identifying all of the fauna, and takes her on a trip by horseback around the country, setting up camp, cooking and protecting her. But he doesn’t say much, doesn’t seem to want to talk, is rather withdrawn and dour. She gets accustomed to it and begins to look outside of herself. They travel much of Scotland to the ocean and as time passes, Brae begins to feel again and find some joy and beauty in life. She has inherited her grandmother’s house and lands on the edge of the ocean Damon becomes friendlier and even laughs with her sometimes. He explains her deceased grandmother’s life, and finally admits to her that he will never marry because he is sterile and he wouldn’t burden any woman with that. But she has a child, she realizes that they are falling in love and that he will never make a move, so she does and he responds. Her travels and kinship with him bring out the best in her and in him.
