Romance Writers Weekly | Dani Jace. Romance Author

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This week on Romance Writers Weekly, Fiona Riplee wants insights into our psyche by learning what movie or network series we LOVE to watch. She also wants to know what we think those movie(s) or show(s) say about our creative personality? If you came from visiting Brenda Margriet thanks for hopping over.

For me, I believe my smorgasbord of movie and show favorites means I have multi personalities! I enjoy pretty much all genres, except gruesome horror.

My newest favorite network show is Lucifer. Talk about a witty devil. I also love Sleepy Hollow and it’s historical plot twists. As a Trekkie from way back, I feel the new Star Trek movies are well done and true to the original series. Chris Pine has the Kirk swagger and Karl Urban pulls off the pessimistic and dry wit of the original Bones. Captain America, Iron Man and Thor turned me into a Marvel fan and now I can’t wait for the next Guardians of the Galaxy. The mix of classic rock and pop into the movie was pure genius. One day, I’d love to write a sci fi or fantasy romance. Between paranormal, fantasy and sci-fi, one of my personalities must believe in the unbelievable.

Sarcastic humor comes second nature and draws me into situation comedies such as Two and Half men and Mike and Molly. Fun movies such as Magic Mike and upbeat romantic comedies, The Ugly Truth, 27 Dresses, and The Replacements are some of my favs. Yeah, the last one is a football movie but also a love story. So I guess I’m a sarcastic romantic.

Above all, I’m a hard core action fan. I grew up on 007, going to Bond flicks with my dad and brother. Indiana Jones and Gladiator are tops on my action repertoire. I’m also a long time fan of Schwarzenegger and Bruce Willis. Dwayne Johnson will always be “The Rock” to me and Vin Diesel as Riddick is one sexy outlaw. For action TV shows right now, I’m into Chicago Fire and Blind Spot. Cinemax’s Strikeback was absolutely awesome. Special forces dudes are the hottest! The action genre embodies a part of my personality that wishes I had the guts and skills to be a total bad ass!

All these personalities within me have helped write a historical romance set in Roman times, a paranormal about shifters, and my last three novels about a firefighter/surfer, SEAL and professional football player. I’d have to say action romance seems to be a theme in my writing.

Hope you’ll hop on over to Leslie Hachtel and see what movies and shows drives her creative side.

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This week’s question for the Romance Writers Weekly blog hop is from Kathryn Renard who is ahead of me on this week’s hop “Good reviews, we love them! Bad reviews, we hate them…but some of them are helpful. What was your favorite negative review?”

As for reviews, I usually scan the star ratings for a feel on how the book is doing before delving into comments. It’s so hard to get reviews on Amazon, especially for newer authors, like me, who don’t have a large reader base. It takes 50 reviews before Amazon promotes a book and includes it in the scrolling feed, Customers Who Bought This Item also Bought. You can love an author by leaving a review!

Of the couple one star reviews I’ve received, one reader hated my novella, White Doe, and ‘absolutely could not read another page,’ but gave no reason.

The worst review on my recently released SEAL story, Sand and Sin, was on Goodreads and the reader despised the cocky hero and thought he was using the single mom. Well…most SEALs are cocky and my heroine totally knew the conflicts of having a fling with a West Coast frogman when she lived in Virginia Beach. It had a HEA (happy ever after) so maybe the story triggered something in the reader’s past.

Now, for my favorite negative: “Baywatch meets Chicago Fire” by The Book Reading Gals on Amazon. Below the picture is a legible version.

Baywatch review

“Thoughts: This is typically a book I would love…we have the guy crushing on the girl for years, the girl secretly loves the guy – not to mention hot firefighters! However, there was a bit of a lack of connection for me with this one…I just didn’t feel the emotions between the characters, and that is a big part of the book for me. In addition to that, I had an issue with the maturity level of the characters. For some reason, this one had a little bit of a New Adult vibe to it, and I just couldn’t shake that feeling the whole time I was reading it. I can’t really pinpoint anything in the book that substantiates my feeling regarding that, but just the writing itself sort of read that way and gave me that impression.

When it comes to this title, think Chicago Fire meets Baywatch and that about sums it up. A decent read overall.”

My thoughts: No other reviewer, my critique group, or beta reader ever said Hot as Blazes read like New Adult story. It’s also four peppers on the heat scale!

On the bright side, I loved their blurb ‘think Chicago Fire meets Baywatch’ and have used it in promo on social media, even though it was probably meant as a slam.

Now on to the witty, S. C. Mitchell, to see what he as to say about his most negative review. Check out his new book, Pirates of the Dark Nebula.