Sourcebooks Casablanca Romance Authors

Today is my sister's birthday. Happy birthday, Sister R! As you can see, she has always been fond of me. Weren't we a snuggly pair? She's the curly-top. I'm the immense pouty-faced baby. When we were kids, there was no one I admired more than my sister. There was also no one I fought with more. When we got older, my admiration stuck around, though fortunately our foot fights came to an end. (She ALWAYS won. Grr. No, I'm over it.) When each of us got married, there was no question who would be the maid/matron of honor. We're godmothers to each other's kids. We live far apart, so we send each other books all the time. And when we do meet up, we enjoy a serious get-together where we act serious and do serious things. I just turned in a book in which sibling relationships are important for both hero and heroine. Some are close; some are distant; some are tense and some are relaxed. People don't get to pick their families. Still, I'd have h...

A couple of months ago, I blogged about fictional sisters , and more recently, about fictional mothers . Today, fictional brothers get their day in the sun--and a complicated, conflicted lot they are too! One thing that fascinated me about brotherly relationships is the extent to which competition shapes their dynamic--and probably has since the dawn of time. Sisters can be competitive too, but when brothers go head to head over something they want, the threat of violence and even bloodshed tends to loom large. Just ask Cain and Abel! Some brotherly rivalries are a match for that Biblical pair in drama and intensity, like that of bellicose Thor and manipulative Loki, who both aspire to the throne of Asgard--and know that only one of them can have it. Or Adam and Charles Trask in East of Eden , who compete for everything from their father’s affection to the beautiful but soulless Cathy Ames--a rivalry that continues into the next generation with Adam’s sons, Caleb and Aron. ...

I am firmly convinced that Disney's Frozen owes its success largely to the film's central relationship. Which, for the first time in forever (yes, that was deliberate), focuses on a pair of sisters: reserved Elsa, who's terrified of her ability to create ice and snow and determined not to harm those she loves with her gift, and impulsive Anna, who's equally determined to rescue her sister from her self-imposed isolation. There is a romantic subplot (and an anti-romantic one as well), but the bond between Elsa and Anna--two of the most fully realized characters Disney has introduced in years--is Frozen 's beating heart. Elsa and Anna: "Love Will Thaw" And why not? The relationship between sisters is a rich vein to mine, and rife with potential drama. Women bound by the ties of family and shared experiences, who can be the best of friends or the bitterest of foes.  Sisters can be as close as Jane and Elizabeth Bennet or Elinor and Marianne Dashwood, pr...

posted by Loucinda McGary aka Aunty Cindy Like it or not, our brothers and sisters are genetically the closest relatives we have. If we share the same mother and father, then we all took that same dip in the old gene pool. (SPLAT!) And in most cases, siblings share the same early environment that shaped us into adults, too. No wonder relationships between and among siblings are so intense and complex. What great fodder for fiction! Brothers and sisters pop up in my own stories a lot. I am the eldest of four siblings, so I know all about those bossy older sister characters from personal experience. Having two younger brothers whom I alternately abhorred and adored (as they did me) , it is no surprise at all that the heroes in all three of my books have older and er, um, somewhat domineering older sisters. In The Wild Sight and The Treasures of Venice , both heroes were raised by their older sisters when their mothers died. Luckily, I was never forced into that role, but I can easily ...