Author: Emma

Emma Barry is a teacher, novelist, recovering academic, and former political staffer. She lives with her high school sweetheart and a menagerie of pets and children in Virginia, and she occasionally finds time to read and write.

eARCs and Promo for Special Interests

Guess what I am in possession of? The final files for Special Interests!

If you review contemporary romance and find the idea of the book interesting at all, please let me know. (For more information about Special Interests, look here.) 

It should appear on NetGalley in the very near future, and I’ll update this post when it does, but if you have a problem with your NetGalley request, or if you don’t use NetGalley, or if you just can’t wait to get your hands on it, please email me at author.emma.barry (at) gmail.com with a link to your blog and your preferred format. While I’m limited in how many I can give away and can’t give one to everybody, if you want to review it, I want to help you get it. All I ask in return is for an honest review.

Also, if you blog about or review contemporary romance and are interested in featuring the book, doing an interview with me, running an excerpt, etc., please send me an email and we’ll see if we can work something out.

ETA: If you want to sign up for the review tour via Goddess Fish Promotions, you can do so here.

ETA2: It’s on NetGalley now!

My Writing Process

Thank you so much to Margaret Locke for inviting me to participate in the My Writing Process blog tour!

1)     What am I working on?

At present, I’m finishing a contemporary novella, a romance between a good girl staffer and a bad boy rocker. It grows out of my series, The Easy Part, but it’s uncontracted so I need to get back to my other work in progress: the third, untitled book for that series. I don’t want to say too much about that project, other than it’s set on the campaign trail, the hero is a Democrat, and the heroine is a Republican. It should be out next year.

Oh, and I have a book coming out in April (Special Interests) and I cannot wait  for you all to read it. (Cannot wait! But also feel a little sick about it going out into the world. Now I need some chocolate.) And I’m on the cusp of edits for my second Easy Part novel, Private Politics, which will be out in September.

2)     How does my work differ from others of its genre?

Most of what I’m writing now is explicitly political. The characters fight about policy and their pillow talk is about fundraising. Other romance writers have considered ambitious, professional women in love (see James, Julie) and there certainly have been political romances (Unfinished Business, The American President, Strange Bedpersons, Fatal Affair)–but in general romance writers have been told to avoid such potentially controversial matters.

Beyond my sort-of-kind-of-different subject matter, what I have to offer is voice: fresh, smart, and witty.

I mean I hope. Jeez, I’m bad at self-promotion.

Continue reading “My Writing Process” →

Brave in Heart: Opening

My American Civil War historical romance novella Brave in Heart will only be on sale at Amazon for only a few more days (until the end of February). If you need any enticement to buy it, the prologue and opening chapter are below.

Continue reading “Brave in Heart: Opening” →

Cover Reveal: Special Interests

After months of waiting (at least that’s what it feels like), here is the cover for Special Interests.

Special Interests Cover

Do you love it? It captures so much of the mood and setting of the book. I can’t stop looking at it.

Seeing the cover makes my book release seem real. I’ll post some excerpts in the coming weeks, but in the meantime, here’s the blurb.

Continue reading “Cover Reveal: Special Interests” →

The Conversion Imperative

(This is the latest entrant in a series my critique partner, Genevieve Turner, and I have been writing about religion in genre romance. The first two posts are here and here. This and the following post were mostly written by Gen.)

Why are characters with religious convictions rarely portrayed in non-inspirational romance? And how is this absence connected with the prevalence of the conversion narratives in inspirational romance?

Emma and I began thinking about these questions when we were discussing the lack of religious references in genre romance, a state of affairs we found puzzling—especially in historical romances. In her series on religion and romance, author Ros Clarke raised the idea that perhaps we don’t see many people of faith in genre romance because those stories are always shunted to the inspirational subgenre.

While batting around our ideas over email, one of our theory was that religion is not mentioned (often) in genre romance because religious differences (at least differences within Christian denominations) are no longer a source of overt conflict in the modern western world.

(Obviously religious conflict remains a big deal globally. I would love to see more romances from places other than the US and Western Europe, either contemporary or historical. But we definitely don’t live in an ideal world. So while this post and series will be western-centric, this is not say that the genre should be. Yay for more diversity!)

I’m old enough to have a grandmother who told me never to discuss politics or religion at dinner parties. The politics bit is less taboo these days (which is why Emma has written a series of political romances), but the “religion as private” prohibition still has currency.

Continue reading “The Conversion Imperative” →

Romance as Conversion

Santa_teresa_di_bernini_03
Image used via WikiCommons License, by Sailko

So a funny thing happened after lots of people read and commented on my post about romance and religion: a series of demands ate my time and made it difficult for me to finish this post. I also found the attention somewhat paralyzing. It’s easier to blog if you think no one is going to read what you have to say—because if people are going to read it, then one is under an obligation to say something interesting and unique.

I am sorry about that; and since I can’t leave the conversation unfinished, and because Gen has some lovely posts on the subject that deserve your attention, I want to offer a few unformed thoughts about how non-inspirational (straight genre) romance may still have a central conversion narrative, but one that substitutes romantic love for religious faith.

Conversion stories and genre romance share a narrative structure. In the opening of each, we generally find our hero or heroine untouched by either romantic love or faith and claiming to be happy without it. But beneath the surface there is an aching lack.

Cue the meet cute! Our hero or heroine is exposed to the charms of their future partner in romance, or the illuminating truth of the gospel or the guiding actions of one of the faithful in conversion stories. The hero or heroine begins to doubt the previous aversion to love or faith.

In the final triumphant act, our hero or heroine is fully converted, often in a rush of some strong emotion forcing them to declare their newfound love or faith. And then they live happily ever after–either in this world, or in Heaven if they’ve been martyred.

Continue reading “Romance as Conversion” →

The Art of the Love Letter

Brave in Heart Letter Page 1

Valentine’s Day is nearly upon us, which means that it’s time for me to write a love letter. And by that, I mean actually sit down and write one, with the pen and the paper and the envelope.

I’m not a big “nostalgize the form” kind of gal. I want nothing with Ludditism here. Once I got an e-Reader, I was happy to abandon physical books at least for pleasure reading. I can’t remember the last time I left a voicemail because it takes less time to read a text message. In general, out with the old!

But there is something about the physical experience of handwriting when it comes to the love letter that I want to maintain. The sound of the pen, the brush of the paper over your skin, the tactile event-ness speaks to what you’re trying to capture on the page. The handwritten love letter beautifully marries form and content.

When I wrote Brave in Heart, I handwrote parts of the novel out of necessity. My kids were in a grabby phase and I didn’t have full-time childcare. If I wanted to write when they were up, and sometimes I did, then handwriting was better than typing as the computer was too much fun to ignore.

But ultimately, certain scenes demanded to be handwritten, including the correspondence bridging two time gaps in the novel. I could not have typed the first drafts of those letters and generated what I did. They had to be written. What resulted is a sort of facsimile of the fictional object. Simulcra love letters.

And precisely because your beloved’s hand touches that same page you hold, his mouth wets the envelope, and so on, the love letter can be an object of veneration. Sorry, Mr. Benjamin, this is one aura I have no desire to destroy. (Frankfurt School digression: though he’d probably agree with me because there’s no mass production involved, at least if you start with blank paper and not a Hallmark card.)

A love letter is a work of art. It is a relict. It is timeless.

And now I’ve got to get to work on mine!

Brave in Heart Letter Page 2

*If you were to try to read them, these letters contain minor BiH spoilers. Edited versions appear in Chapter 11 of that book.

Sale! Sale! Sale!

For the month of February, my Civil War-set historical romance Brave in Heart is on sale for $1.99. This is the first time it’s been discounted since releasing in July so if you haven’t picked it up, now would be a good time. If you need a reason to read it, here’s my no doubt compelling list.

Right now, that price is only at Amazon, but I’ll update this post if it shows up anywhere else.

Blurb for Special Interests

I’m totally not bouncing up and down or anything because the back cover copy for my next book is out. No, not at all. But since you mentioned that you wanted to see it (you did right? I thought I heard something) here is the full blurb for Special Interests.

Compared to love, politics is easy

Union organizer Millie Frank’s world isn’t filled with cocktails and nightclubs…until she’s turned into an unwitting minor celebrity. As if being part of a hostage situation wasn’t traumatizing enough, now her face is splashed across the news. But Millie’s got fresher wounds to nurse—like being shot down by the arrogant bad boy she stupidly hit on.

Parker Beckett will do whatever it takes to close a deal for the senate majority leader, including selling out union labor. Charming and smart on the surface, he’s also cynical and uncommitted—an asset on the Hill. But something about Millie has stuck with him and when negotiations bring her to his office, Parker breaks his own rules and asks her out.

Parker can’t understand how Millie has retained her idealism in a place like D.C. Millie can’t believe what Parker’s willing to sacrifice in order to pass a budget. But as they navigate their political differences, what grows between them looks a lot like a relationship…and maybe even a little like love.

If you want, you can add it to your Goodreads shelves or preorder it on Amazon.