Romancing the Book from Washington with Jen

Hi!  My name is Jen and I’m the owner of Romancing the Book, which is based in Spokane, Washington.  I am excited to be here today to tell you a little about my blog and my state.

Romancing the Book (link to http://romancing-the-book.com) is a site devoted to promoting romance and erotica novels and their authors.   We have an active and growing review staff and we’re currently posting about 30 reviews each week.  And we also host several (3-4) authors each week.  With every guest, we have contests and there are always other books being given away in reviews or just because I’m in a generous mood.

The blog started back in 2008 when one of my best friends emailed me and said “I think we should start a blog about books.”  I had no clue what was involved in blogging and in those early days, we wrote a bunch of crappy reviews about books that we were currently reading.  About 6 months into our experiment, we decided that we actually wanted some readers and decided to see about having a few authors write guest blogs or interview with us and from there we never looked back.  We used to feature all genres, but as my blog partner fell to the background, we started focusing on romance since that’s my preferred reading.  We started picking up reviewers and in February 2011, Romancing the Book became what you see today.

Now on to my state…. I’m not a native Washingtonian.  In fact, I grew up as a military brat living in Italy (where I was born), Pennsylvania, Texas, Germany, Tennessee and North Carolina (where I graduated high school and met my blog partner) before moving to Washington.  You see, my dad retired from the Army the same year I graduated and the whole family decided to move to Washington since my mother’s family is from the area. 

Did I mention that I live on the eastern half of the state near the Idaho border?  See, most people when they think of Washington, they think of Seattle.  They don’t even realize that 300 miles east is the city of Spokane, where I live.  To get there, you cross mountains, rolling farm lands, and even a desert… and for those Twilight fans who know all about Forks, there is even a rain forest a stone throw away from that little (and I mean little) town.  Who knew?  I sure didn’t until I drove across the state for the first time on my way to college in Seattle.

But as an avid reader and blogger, the thing that strikes me as a Spokanite is that we’re often overlooked when it comes to book signings.  *sigh*  Don’t get me wrong, I’ve gotten to meet and greet with a few authors who either live in the area (Linda Lael Miller and Brooke Moss) or those who graciously make the trek across the state (Jane Porter, Debbie Macomber, Susan Elizabeth Phillips).  But these opportunities are often far and few between.

But the joy of working on a blog is “meeting” so many authors and readers.  Sure, it’s not face to face, but I wouldn’t trade it for anything!

I have a copy of Brooke Moss’s most recent release, The Carny, she signed for me to give away .  So, I’m going to give it away to one lucky commenter.  However, due to shipping costs, I can only ship within US and Canada.