Weaving Legends and Reclaiming History….

I am so honored by this post, which is available at Heroes and Heartbreakers.  I’m especially appreciative of the discussion of romance novels and women’s fiction as a form that can be just as powerful as any other novel form.  Janga is always worth reading, and this piece caught me in the throat.  Thanks, Janga.

“On Saturday, July 28, 2012, Barbara Samuel became the thirteenth author inducted into the Romance Writers of America’s Hall of Fame, an honor reserved for multiple RITA winners who have received three of the coveted awards in the same category. Samuel won the 2012 RITA in the Novel with Strong Romantic Elements category for How to Bake a Perfect Lifewritten under the name Barbara O’Neal. That marked Samuel’s third win in the Novel with Romantic Elements category but her seventh win over all categories.

And now, allow me to explain just how varied, rich, and wonderful her books are.

Samuel graduated from the University of Southern Colorado in 1985 and published her first book (her second manuscript), Strangers on a Train, in 1989. That first book was published under the name Ruth Wind, a name she would use for another twenty-two novels and two novellas between 1990 and 2008. Most of her Ruth Wind books were Silhouette category romances. These were the first books of hers I read—amazing books that treated serious issues such as child abuse (Breaking the Rules), illegal immigration (Rio Grande Wedding), and Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome (Reckless) and, at the same time, centered on engaging romances. And she clothed these stories in lovely, lyrical prose without a single lavender-tinted syllable in sight.

In 2000, In the Midnight Rain, her only single title written as Ruth Wind, was published. It was one of the most buzzed about romance novels of the year, and it was named…..READ THE REST OF THE ARTICLE HERE   >>>>>>