Hot new director in Hollywood. About to hit the big time directing his first large-budget film, how will renegade Rafe Santana handle working with producer Claire Kingston - part of one of Hollywood's most famous dynastic families?
Candace Schuler is a writer with a multiple personalities. In her 30+ year career, she has written software user guides, various types of instruction manuals, marketing collateral, grant proposals, case statements, case studies, business profiles, newsletters, press releases, white papers, speeches, scripts, short stories, a cookbook—and 26 (to date) romance novels.
Candace credits her husband Joe and her love of travel with starting her career as a romance writer. It was his comments on a letter describing a trip to New Orleans that prompted her to try writing romance fiction.
She wrote her first novel Desire’s Child by hand on 12 yellow legal pads. It was published by Harlequin in September, 1984 (after she typed it into a computer, of course). Her second book A Cherished Account was published by New American Library under the pen name Jeanette Darwin just one month later. She is also published under the name Candace Spencer.
Her books have appeared on the B. Dalton’s and Waldenbooks bestseller lists and have twice been nominated by the Romance Writers of America for a RITA award in the Best Short Contemporary Romance category—in 1996 for Passion and Scandal and in 2003 for Good Time Girl. Good Time Girl also received the 2003 Scarlett Letter Award, presented by the Tampa Bay Romance Writers for excellence in sensual romance writing. Candace’s books have also received three Reviewers’ Choice Awards from Romantic Times magazine. In 1992, she was awarded the Career Achievement Award as Series Story Teller of the Year by RT.
Because romance is truly universal, most of her books have been published in at least 20 languages, including Mandarin, Japanese, Greek, and most recently, Russian.
She is currently in the process of digitizing her backlist for e-book publication.
Other stuff: •Married almost 40 years to Joe, who recently retired from the IT industry to become a golf bum •“Mom” to two 75-pound Dobermans who think they are lap dogs •Plants a garden every year in hopes of producing the perfect tomato •Bakes a to-die-for chocolate cheesecake •Is a Big Brother Big Sister volunteer •Buys way too many shoes •Holds the Grant Professional Certified credential •Is a member of Novelists, Inc.
The problem with books set during a particular moment of popular culture is how quickly they become out of date. All three books were published in 1993- while I’m old enough to remember the celebrities of the day, several of the movie stars mentioned have passed away in the 20 years since.
All of the books follow a specific variation of the romance novel formula, common for the 1990s. Traditionally, the extremely macho, dominant man must win over the shy, young, sexually inexperienced girl, who will then marry him and quit any job she has to raise children. In this variation, while the man is still handsome and macho, he is sensitive to the woman’s needs, but also reluctant to allow himself to be vulnerable to her by being in love. The woman, now with a thriving modern career, has had some sort of relationship or sexual experience in the past but it was not fulfilling and she suffered for it in some way. She needs a Real Man ™ to awaken the Real Woman ™ in her.
The Kingstons are a good example of their kind and time period. The romance novel formula has changed slightly over time- while boy and girl must always end up together, and must be perfectly, ludicrously beautiful, the personalities and backgrounds are now a little more in line with modern views. For example, in more current romance novels, it is permissible for the woman to have had satisfying past sexual relationships, even if they weren’t her True Love. Careers and children from past relationships are more common. But the romance novel convention of using absurd euphemisms for body parts and sex acts will never stop being hilarious.