Coleen Kwan | Sappy Books

A couple of weeks ago I was talking about books with my eighteen-year-old daughter, and I mentioned how much I’d enjoyed a young adult book I’d recently read. My daughter instantly picked up her phone (to which she is surgically glued, I’m convinced) and Googled the book. She read the blurb and informed me that it sounded like a very sappy book and not for her. Sappy? Me? I was momentarily taken aback, but after I’d thought about it for a while, I was okay with that. What to my daughter sounded sappy and sentimental, was moving and tender to me, and I absolutely loved that book. We all have different tastes in reading, and thank heavens there are so many books out there catering for so many varied palates.

I love reading romance, and even when I pick up a non-romance book my interest is always piqued by the relationships between characters. (Maybe that’s why I’ve never really gotten into non-fiction.) To me these relationships deepen the reading experience and bring the characters to life.

We all know about those books that suck us in and pull us away from our everyday lives, making us stay up late as we read "just one more chapter". There’s a little bit of magic in those books, as if they cast a spell over us so we forget about mundane things like feeding kids, doing laundry, and even eating. Whenever I finish one of these books, I always sigh and wish I could write such a book. I wish I could cast that spell over a reader and hold her captive for a few hours, so that in the end she’ll sigh with satisfaction and not mind that her teenage daughter calls her taste in books "sappy". As a writer, I’d take that as the highest compliment.

What about you? What was the last book that held you spellbound and did it contain some romance? I’d love to know.

About ONE REAL MAN

She's right where he wants her...

Amidst an ugly divorce and an even uglier scandal, Paige Kerrigan has returned to her parents' estate to hide out until things blow over. While she's enjoying a late-night naked swim, however, she's shocked to find Owen Bellamy— her family's former cute pool boy—standing poolside. Now he's all hot, grown up, and renting the Kerrigan property…and he's definitely not forgiven Paige for how she used to treat him.

Once, the beautiful but spoiled Paige Kerrigan was everything Owen wanted. Now she's broke and Owen finally has his revenge...by offering her a place to stay as his housekeeper. Yet Paige isn't the person he remembers. Instead, she's far more than he imagined, and far more irresistible than is safe. But the last thing Owen can afford is to give his heart to the same woman who once broke it.

About Coleen Kwan

Coleen Kwan has been a bookworm all her life. At school English was her favorite subject, but for some reason she decided on a career in IT. After many years of programming, she wondered what else there was in life — and discovered writing. She loves writing contemporary romance and steampunk romance.

Coleen lives in Sydney, Australia with her partner and two children. When she isn’t writing she enjoys avoiding housework, eating chocolate, and watching Criminal Minds.