What makes a romance novel a romance? How do you write a kissing book?Writing a well-structured romance isn't the same as writing any other genre-something the popular novel and screenwriting guides don't address. The romance arc is made up of its own story beats, and the external plot and theme need to be braided to the romance arc-not the other way around.Told in conversational (and often irreverent) prose, Romancing the Beat can be read like you are sitting down to coffee with romance editor and author Gwen Hayes while she explains story structure. The way she does with her clients. Some of whom are regular inhabitants of the New York Times and USA Today bestseller lists.Romancing the Beat is a recipe, not a rigid system. The beats don't care if you plot or outline before you write, or if you pants your way through the drafts and do a "beat check" when you're revising. Pantsers and plotters are both welcome. So sit down, grab a cuppa, and let's talk about kissing books.

Simple ideas, lasting love—all in a short read In this abridged version of the New York Times bestseller The 5 Love Languages®, relationships expert Dr. Gary Chapman offers a trimmed-down explanation of his transformational approach to love. People express and receive love in 5 different ways, called love languages: quality time, words of affirmation, gifts, acts of service, and physical touch. The sooner you discover your language and that of your loved one, the sooner you can take your relationship to new heights. And with this summary version of the award-winning book, you don't have to read long to find out. With disarming wit, clear explanations, and inspiring storytelling, Dr. Chapman only needs a moment of your time to transform your love life.

Unconditional love is eagerly promised at weddings, but rarely practiced in real life. As a result, romantic hopes are often replaced with disappointment in the home. But it doesn’t have to stay that way. The Love Dare, the New York Times No. 1 best seller that has sold five million copies and was major plot device in the popular movie Fireproof, is a 40-day challenge for husbands and wives to understand and practice unconditional love. Whether your marriage is hanging by a thread or healthy and strong, The Love Dare is a journey you need to take. It’s time to learn the keys to finding true intimacy and developing a dynamic marriage. This second edition also features a special link to a free online marriage evaluation, a new preface by Stephen and Alex Kendrick, minor text updates, and select testimonials from The Love Dare readers. Take the dare!

“An engrossing tale [that] provides plenty of food for thought” (People, Best New Books pick), this playful, wise, and profoundly moving second novel from the internationally bestselling author of How Proust Can Change Your Life tracks the beautifully complicated arc of a romantic partnership. We all know the headiness and excitement of the early days of love. But what comes after? In Edinburgh, a couple, Rabih and Kirsten, fall in love. They get married, they have children—but no long-term relationship is as simple as “happily ever after.” The Course of Love explores what happens after the birth of love, what it takes to maintain, and what happens to our original ideals under the pressures of an average existence. We see, along with Rabih and Kirsten, the first flush of infatuation, the effortlessness of falling into romantic love, and the course of life thereafter. Interwoven with their story and its challenges is an overlay of philosophy—an annotation and a guide to what we are reading. As The New York Times says, “The Course of Love is a return to the form that made Mr. de Botton’s name in the mid-1990s….love is the subject best suited to his obsessive aphorizing, and in this novel he again shows off his ability to pin our hopes, methods, and insecurities to the page.” This is a Romantic novel in the true sense, one interested in exploring how love can survive and thrive in the long term. The result is a sensory experience—fictional, philosophical, psychological—that urges us to identify deeply with these characters and to reflect on his and her own experiences in love. Fresh, visceral, and utterly compelling, The Course of Love is a provocative and life-affirming novel for everyone who believes in love. “There’s no writer alive like de Botton, and his latest ambitious undertaking is as enlightening and humanizing as his previous works” (Chicago Tribune).

Keeping your love on. It's a hard thing to do. Sometimes it's the hardest thing to do. But if you want to build healthy relationships with God and others, learning to keep your love on is non-negotiable. Adults and children alike thrive in healthy relationships where it is safe to love and be loved, to know and be known. Yet for many, relationships are anything but safe, loving, or intimate. They are defined by anxiety, manipulation, control, and conflict. The reason is that most people have never been trained to be powerful enough to keep their love on in the face of mistakes, pain, and fear. Keep Your Love On reveals the higher, Jesus-focused standard defined by mature love--love that stays 'on' no matter what. Danny Silk's practical examples and poignant stories will leave you with the power to draw healthy boundaries, communicate in love, and ultimately protect your connections so you can love against all odds. As a result, your relationships will be radically transformed for eternity. When you learn to keep your love on, you become like Jesus.

You are what you love. But you might not love what you think. In this book, award-winning author James K. A. Smith shows that who and what we worship fundamentally shape our hearts. And while we desire to shape culture, we are not often aware of how culture shapes us. We might not realize the ways our hearts are being taught to love rival gods instead of the One for whom we were made. Smith helps readers recognize the formative power of culture and the transformative possibilities of Christian practices. He explains that worship is the "imagination station" that incubates our loves and longings so that our cultural endeavors are indexed toward God and his kingdom. This is why the church and worshiping in a local community of believers should be the hub and heart of Christian formation and discipleship. Following the publication of his influential work Desiring the Kingdom, Smith received numerous requests from pastors and leaders for a more accessible version of that book's content. No mere abridgment, this new book draws on years of Smith's popular presentations on the ideas in Desiring the Kingdom to offer a fresh, bottom-up rearticulation. The author creatively uses film, literature, and music illustrations to engage readers and includes new material on marriage, family, youth ministry, and faith and work. He also suggests individual and communal practices for shaping the Christian life.

An exploration of human behavior examines the innate aspects of love, sex, and marriage, discussing flirting behavior, courting postures, the brain chemistry of attraction, divorce and adultery in societies around the world, and more. Reprint.

In the sleepy college town of Athens, Georgia, a young man goes off to college to bed the luminous local rock star. From his working class family to a world of rich vicarious living, Martin's story is told in sparse, lyric prose that lingers with beauty but doesn't waste a moment. In this alternative bildungsroman, the unspoken relationship soon distorts under the toll of world tours and plush overseas hotel rooms. Love fails under celebrity's harsh distorting light, and the student loses his innocence.

Persephone Triebold has grown up in the strange desolation of the Scottish Highlands, raised by her anxious father and memories of her dead mother. Inexperienced in the rules of friendship, sex and love, Persephone takes the opportunity to replace uninhabited mountain ranges with city life and leaves to study for a degree in London. Parties, new friends and the polluted splendour of the capital intoxicate Persephone at first, but fail to supply her with the grand passion she wants. It's only when she meets the literary star Leo Ford, a former singer who has become a celebrated writer, that she finds someone she can love. Though Persephone succeeds in entering Leo's circle of friends she finds him to be as elusive as he is sought after. And she becomes increasingly curious about the incident in his past of which no one ever speaks...