Who Am I?

No, I’m not Spiderman. Or Batman. Or any other superhero who seems to utter that question nowadays. It’s been one year since I started this blog, and I realized that I’ve never properly introduced myself. So, I thought, why not get to know the crazy chica who’s been droning on and on to all of you about romance and the like?

The Basics

Authors often e-mail me to review their books, and one of the things I love most about their initial e-mails is how they choose to address me. Ms. Romance for the Beach is often used. She who shall not be named. The mystery writer. I’m not really sure why I chose to keep my name a secret, but here we go. The big reveal. Drumroll please. My name is Lauren. Hiya! Now that that’s out-of-the-way, let’s move on to some of the fun stuff.

Today is my birthday, which means I am officially 26 years old! Woot woot. I’m single and I live in a big city. I won’t go into too much detail about exact location, because let’s face it, you have to make it a little hard for all the stalkers out there to track you down, but let’s just say I once saw the President during my lunch break. I may be single, but I personally find nothing wrong with that, and am in no way looking to settle down in the near future. Scandalous, I know. But I’ve got a job that let’s me travel on a regular basis, and a great group of friends, so I’m not exactly pining away for a knight in shining leather.

And so it Began

Believe it or not, this isn’t my first blog. I used to have a site dedicated to reviewing movies, but it definitely didn’t get as much visibility as this one. Also, I found that when it came to movies people were much more vicious/rude with their opinions if they differed from mine. Maybe book people are just a lot nicer!

Obviously, I love romance novels. Although I’ve always loved reading, my love affair with the romance genre is fairly new, and started approximately 4 years ago when I was living in China. I had just finished the Hunger Games trilogy, and even though I absolutely loved the books I couldn’t help but feel a tad disappointed that there was only a bit of kissing between the main characters. I wanted a little more heat!

So I started an online search of books which featured the best sex scenes ever, and lo and behold Goodreads kept suggesting romance novels. But I don’t read romance novels! I kept looking for other genres which might have some steamy scenes, but eventually I had to admit to myself that if I wanted a book with some tumbling between the sheets, I’d have to pick up a romance. The Bronze Horseman was the book I chose, and after being completely blown away by the quality of the writing, not to mention the more than adequate ways to keep warm during a Russian winter (hint hint, wink wink), my love for all things romance began in earnest.

My Favorite Things

Getting back on track to talking about myself, I have a knack for languages including French and Chinese. I love Thai food, and long walks on the beach. Come on, you know I had to put that in there 🙂 My favorite movie is Gone with Wind, and my favorite book is Crocodile on the Sandbank. When I’m not reading or working on this blog, you’ll probably find me at a happy hour with friends, watching a movie, or playing the piano. That’s right, I still manage to have a social life in spite of the amount of time it takes to manage this blog all by myself. I used to hate beach vacations, because I found them to be rather boring, but now I’ve found they are one of the best ways to indulge in my romance novel obsession. That being said, one of my favorite vacations ever was a 2 week trip all over France, so any book set in that locale is a must read. Is it just me, or is this starting to sound like a personal ad?

Likes and Dislikes

Well, if it does sound like a dating site profile, then I might as well go all out. I may have alluded to it earlier, but let me officially say that I love to travel. I think this was brought on by the fact that I was born and raised in Ohio, and there isn’t much to do there. So I went to school in both Canada and China, found a job that lets me travel extensively for 3 months out of the year all over the USA, and my next travel goal is to do a cross-country road trip. I read a romance novel once where the female lead wanted to dip her toes in both the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans to mark the beginning and end of her trip. What can I say? The idea stuck with me. When it comes to reading, I love a fairy tale happy ending.

As for dislikes, Mondays are my enemy, because they mark the beginning of the work week when I can no longer sit and read all day. I’m not a huge fan of reading about BDSM relationships, or novels which are too suspenseful because they make me fidgety.

I never majored in writing or literature in college, but that doesn’t mean I can’t write a book review every now and again! So that’s me in a nutshell. Nothing too exciting, but hopefully now you know a bit more than you did before.