Category Archives: Rom-Com

“The Santa Drag” ~ This Santa has a secret only true love can reveal!

28 Friday Nov 2014

Posted by in Fiction, Rom-Com, Romance

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This season the biggest surprise isn’t under the tree…

The Santa Drag coverMackenzie’s an out-of-work actress who takes a job as a shopping mall Santa to pay the rent. She fools everyone with her Santa drag, until the day Joe McBride walks into the mall. Joseph Timothy McBride – the real-life, got a soap opera gig and you saw him in Scream II actor. The only guy she ever really loved.

Can Mack stay in character, or is it time to strip off the red coat and peel off the beard for good?

The Santa Drag is a 6,000 word short story about a Santa with a secret, stressed out parents in the mall, and one very handsome actor.

Black Friday FREEBIE! ~ Nov. 28-30

Don’t miss out on this delicious holiday treat! From 11/28 – 11/30/14, The Santa Drag is FREE from Amazon [Kindle Edition]!

Reviewers have called this story charming and funny. Want a quick holiday pick-me-up? Get it here with one-click: The Santa Drag.

The Santa Drag is available exclusively from Amazon [Kindle Edition]. After November 30th, you can buy it here.

Read an Excerpt:

A kid in my lap threatened to throw up, taking my full attention for several moments, and when I looked up again it was Joe’s turn. Maya gave him a way-too-friendly smile, which he returned with his standard, ‘yep, I’m handsome,’ grin. His kids stood behind him. The boy clearly thought he was too old for all this nonsense, and his sister was trapped in between the excitement of seeing Santa and her brother’s ennui.

“Come on, guys,” Joe said, tugging the boy forward with an arm around the shoulders. I paid strict attention to the kids. I did not want to look at his face or see the dimple in his chin.  He turned around to say something to Maya. I really didn’t want to look at his ass.

“Uncle Joe, this is so stupid,” the boy said. Uncle Joe. I almost jumped out of my chair. They must be his sister Kelly’s kids.

“Get over there, Saxton. We’re taking pictures for your mother’s Christmas present. Mabyn, you too.” Joe pushed his nephew in my direction. Saxton and Mabyn? Wow, Kelly must be seriously into her Irish heritage. Or something.

Saxton was dressed in a red and green striped soccer jersey and jeans, his longish brown hair slicked back behind his ears. Mabyn wore a green sweater and jeans, with her hair pulled back in a thick red braid. Joe had jeans on, too. I tried really hard not to notice how well they fit across his thighs.

“Uncle Joe, will you get us some ice cream after this?” Mabyn asked.

“If you smile pretty for the camera.”  Joe gave her a shadow of the grin that I remembered. She gave him a pretty decent grin in return, though her big front teeth overlapped and there was a gap where one eye tooth should have been. Braces must be coming soon.

“She wishes she could smile pretty,” Saxton sneered. Mabyn smacked him on the arm. “Ow, she hit me. She should get in trouble.”

I would have hit him harder.

With Joe standing so close, it was hard to remember that I was supposed to be Santa. I gave a half-assed “Ho-ho-ho,” which sounded strangled, even to me. He glanced over at me, and I accidentally met his eyes. I looked away immediately, but not before I saw the flash. Not recognition, exactly, but interest. I could feel him watching me. “Ho-ho-ho.” It came out heartier this time. I was so not going to give myself away.

Meet Liv:

I write romance: m/f, m/m, and v/h, where the h is for human and the v is for vampire…or sometimes demon. I write funny. I don’t write angst. When I’m not writing I take care of tiny premature babies or teenagers, depending on whether I’m at home or at work. My husband is a soul of patience, my dog is the cutest thing evah(!), and we’re up to three ferrets.

I can be found on-line at all hours of the day and night:

Stop by. We’ll have fun!

Shakespeare: The Rom-Com King

23 Tuesday Apr 2013

Posted by in Humor, Rom-Com, Shakespeare

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Happy Bardacious Birthday!

Fireworks heartsToday is Shakespeare’s 449th birthday! If you missed last year’s Bardacious Birthday post on YA-spin adaptations of his plays, you can read it here.

This year I wanted to do a celebratory shout out for Shakespeare’s happy plays … the romantic comedies. Rom-coms, in the current vernacular

Shakespeare’s comedies are my favorites, shallow (but happily so) as that may be. Though I’m not alone, if you consider how long they’ve been hits … 400+ years!

When I was researching my post, Rom-Coms ~The Lighter Side of Love, I came across an article that claimed “Shakespeare was the first [author] to make rom-coms popular.” I don’t know if that’s true. But it sounds true, so I’m going to roll with it seeing how it’s his birthday and all.

The following is a list of Shakespeare’s comedies. I’m sure you’ve heard of at least a few, and maybe even seen a movie of one or two:

  • All’s Well That Ends WellMidsummer's Nigh Dream movie poster
  • As You Like It
  • The Comedy of Errors
  • Love’s Labour’s Lost
  • Measure for Measure
  • The Merchant of Venice
  • The Merry Wives of Windsor
  • A Midsummer Night’s Dream
  • Much Ado About Nothing
  • Pericles, Prince of Tyre
  • The Taming of the Shrew
  • The Tempest
  • Twelfth Night
  • The Two Gentlemen of Verona
  • The Two Noble Kinsmen
  • The Winter’s Tale

Forsooth! Formulaic or Fantastic?

I may be a huge Shakespeare comedy fan, but there are some who insist his comedies are formulaic. That he even “borrowed” the formula and used it over, and over, and over again. Whatever.

I love Shakespeare’s comedies for what they are — witty and fun. In their time, they entertained nobility and the uneducated common folk. In the same theater. No small feat, breaching a target audience gap that wide.

How now! A 16 Play Mashup!

Shakespeare was a man of his time, and if he were alive today he’d embrace the humor and whimsy of our modern world. Enter the mashup. It’s popular in today’s music, why not plays? The following mashup of Shakespeare’s 16 comedies was contrived by none other than the raucously irreverent Reduced Shakespeare Company (RSC), creators of the Othello Rap…

The Comedy of Two Well Measured Gentlemen Lost in the Merry Wives of Venice on a Midsummer’s-Twelfth Night in Winter; or Cymbeline Taming Pericles the Merchant in the Tempest of Love as Much as you like it for Nothing; or Four Weddings and a Transvestite

Trust me. You don’t want to miss the performance of the comedy mashup…

Reduced Shakespeare Company ~ 16 Comedies in 4 Minutes!

Rom-Coms ~ The Lighter Side of Love

09 Saturday Feb 2013

Posted by in Humor, Love, Rom-Com

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???????????????????????????????????????Shakespeare was the first writer to popularize the Romantic Comedy (Rom-Com) with A Midsummer Night’s Dream and his other comedies. Who knew?

The invention of moving pictures brought back the Rom-Com craze, reaching new heights in the 1930’s and ’40s with such screwball comedies as Bringing Up Baby, Some Like it Hot, and It Happened One Night.

Rom-Com fever faded away for a few decades, then made a big comeback in the 90’s with Pretty Woman, When Harry Met Sally, Sleepless in Seattle, and While You Were Sleeping to name just a few.

One of My Fave Rom-Coms: Never Been Kissed

NeverBeenKissed4Some people wish they could go back to high school, knowing what they know as an adult. Twenty-five year-old copy editor Josie Geller (Drew Barrymore) gets the chance to do just that, with the opportunity to nab a story on the state of America’s youth for her Chicago paper. The only problem is, Josie was a total geek in high school, which her brother Rob (David Arquette) reminds her of … along with her nickname: Josie Grossie.

Josie has no choice but to enroll in high school and face her nerdy demons. But sheNeverBeenKissed2 soon learns that the seven years since her graduation didn’t bring her any closer to coolness. She quickly befriends Aldys (Leelee Sobieski) the bookish mathlete, and gets her handsome English teacher Mr. Coulson’s (Michael Vartan) attention by reciting a romantic except from Shakespeare in class. While Josie is geeking out, a rival paper scoops the underage drinking and teen promiscuity story, and Josie’s boss is livid.

To land the story that will save her job, Josie sets out to infiltrate the cool girls’ clique, only to end up making a bigger fool out of herself in front the cool kids and her English teacher at a local club. She’s left branded as a Loser. Literally.

NeverBeenKissed3Rob, the ultimate Cool Dude, hears of Josie’s latest escapades and intervenes by enrolling in high school. True to form, Rob instantly becomes Mr. Popular, giving Josie the street creds she needs to win over the cool girls and get Guy — the hottest boy in her class — crushing on her. Sparks start to fly between Josie and her English teacher, and as her feelings deepen for Mr. Coulson, her boss turns up the heat, demanding a defamatory article on inappropriate relationships between teachers and their students.

The path Josie takes to acing her story with integrity, and winning the guy of her dreams, is as empowering as it is satisfying.

What’s Your Favorite Rom-Com?

We all have at least one Rom-Com we love to watch (over and over). I have several. In honor of Valentine’s Day, come clean and shout it out!

Don’t be shy.

To know you (and your rom-com fave) is to love you.