Add snow and turn up the heat.

OK, so we’ve finally had our “cold”snap and it’s not 110 in the shade any more. But before that happened I needed a different kind of steamy to take my mind off the heat. What better than Christmas romance. Turn to Christine Rimmer’s Scrooge and the Single Girl. Snow covered cabin, grumpy but hunky guy, Christmas music on the radio, and the lead lady complete with scumptious holiday fixings and junk food. Toss in ghostly appearances, cat and dog drama and you’ve got the perfect diversion from the heat. Christine Rimmer does a great job serving up romance through her Bravo family stories. This one is part of the Sons of Caitlin Bravo. If you don’t know about the Bravo books, here’s a handy list and summary of titles straight from Christine. All excellent for summer reading. (And she’s an Oklahoma Author)

Recently someone questioned my reading romances. Just when you think everyone has gotten past that sort of silliness. So I was talking to one of my romance reading colleagues about this and she didn’t get it either. Here’s why we think women continue to read romance (and the statistics prove it);  the women are always strong characters, they don’t settle for second best.  They usually have a good sense of humor, and interesting jobs.  The men are strong and good looking, but once caught are devoted to the one girl. (no off to Argentina with a soulmate for these guys) They are not afraid to be romantic. And we know It’s all going to work out in the end, the right girl, the right guy. Nothing wrong with Happily Ever After.  If you need unhappily ever after just turn on the television, pick up a celebrity rag or surf the net.

I do get the reality of relationships, I just like to take a break. So for those scrooges of romance,  here’s my favorite poem by Marge Piercy.

What’s That Smell in the Kitchen?

All over America women are burning dinners.
It’s lambchops in Peoria: it’s haddock
in Providence; it’s steak in Chicago:
tofu delight in Big Sur; red rice and beans in Dallas.
All over America women are burning food they’re supposed to bring with calico smile on
platters glittering like wax.
Anger sputters in her brainpan, confined but spewing out missiles of hot fat.
Carbonized despair presses like a clinker
from a barbecue against the back of her eyes.
If she wants to grill anything, it’s
her husband spitted over a slow fire.
If she wants to serve him anything it’s a dead rat with a bomb in its belly ticking like the
heart of an insomniac.
Her life is cooked and digested,
nothing but leftovers in Tupperware.
Look, she says, once I was roast duck
on your platter with parsley but now I am Spam.
Burning dinner is not incompetence but war.

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