Sarah MacLean

Sarah MacLean
Sarah MacLeanis a New York Times bestselling American author of young adult novels and romance novels. Her first adult romance novel, Nine Rules to Break When Romancing a Rake debuted on the New York Times Bestseller List, where it stayed for four weeks. Since February 2014, MacLean has written a monthly romance novel review column for The Washington Post. She is a two-time winner of the Romance Writers of America RITA Award for Best Historical Romance for A Rogue by...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionAuthor
Date of Birth17 December 1978
CountryUnited States of America
Colleen McCullough taught me that desire is the heart of romance.
But she had dreamed of being his for too long. He had quite ruined her for a marriage of convenience. She wanted everything from him: his mind, his body, his name and, most of all, his heart.
But there, in that remarkable room, surrounded by a laughing, rollicking, unseeing collection of London's brightest and wickedest, Pippa's knowledge of anatomy expanded. It seemed there was such a thing as a broken heart.
I feel able to comfort myself emotionally, and this keeps my heart open.
I, for one, have no interest at all in having my heart stolen.
Boring heroines are, in my opinion, the most common romance mistake. We loathe hanging out with women who define themselves purely through their relationships... why would we want to read about them?
Like so many others, I came to romance during the golden age of it - Judith McNaught, Julie Garwood, Johanna Lindsey and Jude Deveraux were at the height of their historical domination. Without those women, I wouldn't be a romance novelist.
I'm so thrilled to have won the RITA. The award is particularly special because it is given by other romance authors. It's deeply rewarding and not a little humbling to be honored by such a talented tribe of writers.
Here's the thing about romance novels: The moment when the hero and heroine discover that they're perfect for each other is often the moment when it's them against the world.
No doubt, much of the joy of a great romance is the moment when these stoic heroes crack open and reveal themselves to their heroines - the only women strong enough to match them.
I never met Colleen McCullough; if I had, I probably would have cried and made a fool of myself.
Even in 2014, when romance heroes are as varied as their genre, somewhere in them you can still always find the alpha male.
Critics seem to forget that every love story is different - that there is uniqueness in even the most commonplace of matches.
By the time I was 10 or 12, I had discovered the lure of the romance genre - and the dusty copy of 'The Thorn Birds' on my parents' bookshelf.