In Linda Howard's book All the Queen’s Men, Louis Ronsard plays the villian.   He’s a wealth arms dealer who is portrayed as completely amoral.   He is targeted as the middleman who sells stolen arms to terrorists.

Ronsard was a shadowy Frenchman who gave his allegiance to no one group; he was the conduit, however, for many, and he had made an enormous fortune providing what was needed. He probably wasn’t behind the development of the explosive, but he would be the logical person to approach as a middle man, one to handle payments and shipments-for a fee, of course

He was, though, not without some standards:

The maniac who wanted to explode a bomb in a school as a protest for world peace was not going to purchase that bomb or the materials through him.

But he facilitated getting dangerous weapons into the hands of men who would do terrible things, like bring down an entire airplane to get one man.    Despite this, there are a number of Howard fans who have found Rosnard interesting and would like to see him star in his own book.   After all, Rosnard had an excuse.   His daughter is sick and he’s amassing this wealth to save her.   Or at least that is part of his justification.

I never saw the appeal of a Rosnard, a man who helped terrorists.   I found that to be irredeemable.   His was not a book I’d want to read.    While it is just fiction, there are lines I have drawn, particularly in romance about the type of person I want to spend time with and even with some of my favorite authors, there are paths I can’t, or won’t, travel with her.    I note that it is generally within romance than I have more of a black and white view of the main protagonists (although in fantasy, I’m looking for the good v. evil fix as well).

There are tropes that are acceptable outside of romance that I think romance readers have a hard time accepting within the genre.   Incest is one of those.   V.C. Andrews’ famed Flowers in the Attic features a love story between the two eldest children.   Locked up in the attic for years, the two teenagers begin to explore their burgeoning sexuality with each other, knowing that it is forbidden.    This story is a horror story and the children suffer tremendous emotional and physical abuse at the hands of their grandmother and mother.   Perhaps in light of all that the children have suffered, the love of each other is a minor sin.

Within the romance paradigm, however, I can’t help but think such a story would not be countenanced.   More than one blogger has been so outraged by even the advertisement of a book containing incest that I cannot imagine the uproar that would exist if a legitimate publisher put forth an incestual romance.

Having said that, there are plenty of brother and twin menage stories and there is the famed Men of August series by Lora Leigh wherein the brothers had to share their wives with each other in group sex acts to feel whole and loved due to the fact that the brothers were mercilessly tormented as children.   (Shades of Flowers in the Attic?)

One area I have a problem with is infidelity.   In  Promise in a Kiss is the story of Devil Cynster’s mother and father.     The problem is that Devil’s father cheated on his wife with a Scottish woman and brought home the bastard to be raised by Devil’s mother.

  While Promise in a Kiss is written by an author who holds a strong grip on my reading emotions, the love story of the unfaithful Sebastien and Helena is one I simply couldn’t bring myself to read.

Yet, I’ve read books that feature infidelity within the genre trope that I’ve enjoyed.   I recently enjoyed a Michelle Reid glom and one of her backlist titles is The Ultimate Betrayal which features a husband who was unfaithful (to a certain point).   The infidelity happens off screen and before the start of the book.   Amy Garvey’s Pictures of Us is about a couple who had a picture perfect marriage only to find out that during a very difficult time in their relationship, before they were married, the heroine drifted away from the hero and the hero had a sexual relationship with another woman resulting in a pregnancy.   It wasn’t infidelity, technically, but the characters feel like they were being untrue to the other.

Then there is rape.   Forced seduction is an acceptable trope in the genre and some might even say that it is making a comeback.   I was surprised reading the March Sara Craven title, The Innocent’s Surrender.   I am a big Sara Craven fan but this one features a rape scene, or at least what I would term as a rape scene, in the beginning of the book.   Hero has heroine kidnapped and brought to his bedroom. His henchman lock the door and the heroine is not allowed to escape.   Hero tells heroine that she is not permitted to leave until she has sex with him. She begs him to allow her to leave, but he tells her that he has a letter indicating that she wants to engage in lascivious acts with him and that is what she will do until he tells her that she may go.

But what about Molly Sommerville in This Heart of Mine who raids Kevin Tucker’s shaving kit, climbs into bed with him, and while he is sleeping, proceeds to avail herself of his equipment and have sex with him while he is senseless.

The romance genre has con artists like the characters in Judith Ivory’s Untie My Heart, Jennifer Crusie’s Faking It, and Courtney Milan’s Proof of Seduction.     We’ve also had batterers, redeemed ones, in romance.   The Burning Point by Mary Jo Putney attempts to rekindle the marriage of a reformed batterer and his wife.

While I’d like to say a good author could make me accept anything, I know that is not true.   There are lines that I draw for characters and if they cross that line, it makes me hard to find them redeemable. I never enjoyed The Burning Point.   While I appreciated the writing in Ivory and Crusie’s books, I was never able to fully immerse myself in their stories.   In re-reading the Michelle Reid backlist, I’m not likely to revisit The Ultimate Betrayal.   I still have the willies after reading the first two Men of August books (could never make it to book 3) but I am able to read the twinsie/brother menages (because they aren’t touching!) although even that is losing its appeal the more that I contemplate it.

How about a bad mother? Could a mother who has abandoned her child, maybe even treated the child cruelly, be redeemed?   How about a pedophile?   A serial rapist?   An animal abuser?   Are there clear lines between the good guys and bad guys in your mind?    Are there lines that you draw in fiction?   Or is it all dependent on how good the author is?   Does it matter if it is romance or literary fiction? Why or why not?

No related posts.

One of the new front page highlights is the Featured area which shows the last four reviews. Because we are a review site, I feel like that content sometimes gets lost. All new content shows up in reverse chronological order under the Featured area.

One other thing we are unveiling is the Advanced Search page. This will be more and more robust as we do some backend changes to the database by as of now, it is easier to search and find content here at Dear Author.

Globe and Mail writes about the year of 2009 and the upheavals and the opportunities:

One positive result of the upheaval has been to "democratize" the industry, according to Nelson, giving smaller publishers a chance to bid on promising titles once monopolized by the majors, whose acquisition budgets have gotten smaller.

Speaking of small publisher success, OR Books, announced that it’s very first title, Going Rouge, has become a New York Times Bestseller. The only way that a reader could initially get the book was to order a digital copy or a POD copy directly from OR Books which cut down on the print run costs and the returns from resellers freeing up money to spend on advertising. OR then sold the paperback rights to HCI. It is now a NYT Bestseller.

Romance was on the front page of Daily Kos, one of the most popular political blogging sites on the internet. It is an awesome, articulate and pro romance article. Mainstream may never give the genre the recognition and respect it deserves, but the internet is democratizing the reach of opinions.

I’m sure there are a hundred other myths to be attacked, and none will die easily. But in the end, even if they were mostly true, the disgust for romance novels and their readers would still look more like disdain for women and feminized culture than anything else.

If you are an ebook reader with a tethered device, the manufacturer or reseller is looking at your reading habits. Electronic Freedom Frontier has a must read piece on an ebook buyer’s guide to privacy. (Thanks, Phyllis, for the link).

In other words, your Kindle will periodically send information about you to Amazon. But exactly what information is sent? Amazon’s wording -’ “information related to the content on your Device and your use of it” -’ reads so broadly that it appears to allow Amazon to track all content that users put on the device, regardless of whether that content is purchased from Amazon. Some security researchers have indicated that the Kindle may even be tracking its users’ GPS locations. Is this the future of reading?

Related posts:

1. Tuesday Midday Links: Harlequin Horizon’s, A self publishing venture
2. Tuesday Midday Tech Links: BN’s Reader Is Called Nook. Not a Joke
3. Tuesday Midday Links: Stephen Covey Decouples

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Speaking of ebooks, in an effort to “save publishing”, major publishers will be delaying ebook releases.   Most of these decisions will not affect romance readers and mass market consumers.   Hardcovers are considered the lifeblood of trade publishing and to that end, it’s hardcovers that are being targeted.   Harper Collins will hold back 5 to 10 ebook releases per month for hardcover titles, delaying release anywhere from 4 weeks to 6 months.   Simon & Schuster will delay the ebook release for 4 months for 35 hardcover titles.   St. Martin’s Press already delays release or doesn’t release the eversion at all (I’ve stopped buying SMP books for that reason).   Hachette (Grand Central and Forever) will delay the release of ebooks.

Money quotes:

Carolyn Reidy, CEO of Simon & Schuster:

Simon & Schuster CEO Carolyn Reidy said Wednesday that the rise of e-books has led to a “cannibalizing” of new hardcover purchases.

“We believe that a large portion of the people who have bought e-readers are from the most devoted reading population,” Reidy said. “And if they like the e-readers they are naturally going to convert because the e-books are so significantly less expensive.

and

“The right place for the e-book is after the hardcover but before the paperback,” said Carolyn Reidy, CEO of Simon & Schuster, which is owned by CBS Corp. “We believe some people will be disappointed. But with new [electronic] readers coming and sales booming, we need to do this now, before the installed base of e-book reading devices gets to a size where doing it would be impossible.”

So essentially consumers are being punished because Amazon and others are pricing hardcovers at 9.99 in both print and ebook format.   I’ve got a lot of thoughts about why I think this is a bad strategy and why it won’t achieve the goals the publishers are trying to reach.

****

Both Walt Mossberg and David Pogue were disappointed with the nook and thought that it was a rushed product.   BN promises that the software crashes and the non responsive touch screens can all be fixed by a software upgrade but Mossberg and Pogue both think that buying one now is a mistake:

From Pogue’s review:

Worse, the touch screen is balky and nonresponsive, even for the Nook product manager who demonstrated it for me. The only thing slower than the color strip is the main screen above it. Even though it’s exactly the same E Ink technology that the Kindle and Sony Readers use, the Nook’s screen is achingly slower than the Kindle’s. It takes nearly three seconds to turn a page -’ three times longer than the Kindle -’ which is really disruptive if you’re in midsentence.

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Smart Bitch Sarah gave a timely rebuttal to Alan Elsner’s piece at Huffington Post.

What is most frustrating for all of us is that there are many readers like Mr. Elsner, who see romance wherever a handful of books are sold and find themselves curious. There are better ways to evaluate a genre than to read a few books chosen without advice or direction, proclaim it all trash, and move on. I know of very few PhDs who acquired their degrees through this method. That’s a lazy way to evaluate anything, a method that speaks more of the desire for validation on the part of the reader than of that reader’s intellectual curiosity.

Magdalen B suggests that news stories profiling a few romance authors with degrees from Ivy League schools aren’t doing enough to raise the reputation of romance within the mainstream community.   Magdalen suggests that we need to make a cultivated effort to get some of these people to read a 10 ten list of books of romances and that the Smart Bitches are one of the parties who could carry the water.   Sarah has done this, appearing on television shows, in People magazine, radio stations in Austrialia,  on NPR, and on websites around the internet.   Sarah is a great ambassador of the romance genre, smart and articulate.   I can only hope that her message will some day break through.

Related posts:

1. Monday Midday Links: It Is All Gloom and Doom (today at least)
2. Wednesday Midday Links RoundUp: Big Changes at Simon & Schuster
3. If You Love Reading, You’ll Love Ebooks

I know that one of the reasons I have resisted a Kindle or a Nook is because of the limitations put on it by the manufacturer. I want something that allows me to upload and read any document I so chose, regardless of origin. I also want to be able to manage my own electronic products, move them around if so desired.

Stephenie Meyer is burnt out on vampires and her next book is likely to be a follow up to her adult novel, The Host and maybe a fantasy book. Sounds like she doesn’t have anything written. Maybe look for Meyer in 2010 or 2011?

Publishers’ Weekly has an article entitled “Romancing the Recession” and it talks about the vibrancy of the romance genre. Paranormal leads the pack with historicals selling strong but what is surprising (but encouraging for me) is the rise of the contemporary. Long time readers will know that I love a good contemporary. Sarah Wendell and I even created a special website called SavetheContemporary.com.

St. Martin’s, says Enderlin, continues to see growth in this area, especially with humorous, contemporary romances such as Susan Donovan’s Ain’t Too Proud to Beg, about the romantic fortunes of a group of single women in a dog-walking group. SMP also recently launched a new chef-themed series by Louisa Edwards with Can’t Stand the Heat; the follow-up, On the Steamy Side, is due in March. Each title is billed as a "recipe for love novel." As Enderlin says, "Right now there’s so much dark paranormal out there. Light, funny, contemporary can be an antidote to that."

Author Sharon Ashwood is offering holiday greeting cards in an effort to assist dogs and cats who are injured and abandoned. These cards also serve as a promotional vehicle for her upcoming release, Scorched. Photos of GVAC pets and artwork for the greeting cards can be found at: http://www.sharonashwood.com/gvac.php.

For every card downloaded, Ashwood, a native of Victoria, Canada, will donate 54 cents, Canadian, to the Greater Victoria Animal Crusaders (GVAC). All donations will help defray veterinary costs for one of GVAC’s injured pets. Once that animal’s expenses have been covered, all donations from Ashwood’s program will then go toward the health care costs of another dog or cat. The author says she settled on 54 cents as the donation amount because that’s the current cost for a Canadian first-class postage stamp.

Wired takes a look at adaptions of children’s books that have resulted in box office disappointment.

Charlie & the Chocolate Factory (2005)
Where Gene Wilder succeeded in making Willy Wonka a lovable character with a sardonic twist, Johnny Depp did quite the opposite, and director Tim Burton helped turn the character into a creepy loner with too much makeup. While the children were spot-on and the music was updated to current pop culture standards, the presence of Depp’s Wonka gave the film a disturbing vibe that was hard to shake. -’Curtis Silver

Apple has filed a patent on ad technology that would require you to interact by pressing a button or tapping a screen in response to a directive from the ad itself. Egads, is this scary or what?

The technology can freeze the device until the user clicks a button or answers a test question to demonstrate that he or she has dutifully noticed the commercial message. Because this technology would be embedded in the innermost core of the device, the ads could appear on the screen at any time, no matter what one is doing.”

Can DNA matching serve you better than a regular old dating site?

A couple of genetic testing companies are promising to match couples based on DNA testing, touting the benefits of biological compatibility. The companies claim that a better biological match will mean better sex, less cheating, longer-lasting love and perhaps even healthier children.

Related posts:

1. Monday Midday Links: Kensington Loses a Family Member in Kate Duffy
2. Monday Midday Links: It Is All Gloom and Doom (today at least)
3. Monday Midday Links Roundup: ABA Wants DOJ to Investigate Discount Pricing

Janet: Reading through the comments on the Dear Author Golden Era poll, they seem to reflect the split in the voting between the 1990s and the 2000s. Those who chose the 1990s seem more like Historical Romance readers, while a number of those favoring the current decade have pointed to the online community and the way that has opened up awareness of many more books.

Jaili:   Hm, when I think of the 1990s, I think of category romance novels – from authors such as Sandra Canfield, Anne Stuart, Judith Arnold, Marilyn Pappano, Linda Howard, Jennifer Cruise, Sharon Sala, and many more – and romantic suspense as well as speculative romance (vampire romances, futuristic romances, ghost romances and many more). Historical romances of the 1990s were different from the 2000s, too.

Janet: I’ve read Stuart, Howard, Crusie, and probably others, but most of my reading, I think, has been in historicals of the 90s. But now that I think about it, Howard is very much of the 90s, at least the books I’ve read of hers. Some Stuart books, too, like Ritual Sins.   I think part of it is that there’s just a ton of books to read. I’ve only been reading Romance for about six years, and I’ve managed to get through hundreds of books in that time, and many, many of them are oldies but goodies, but my reading is of books selected for me. Consequently, I have a very positive regard for those decades as judged through some truly outstanding books, from the Laura London Regencies to LaVyrle Spencer’s inaugural Harlequin Temptation, Spring Fancy, to almost all the books of Laura Kinsale and Judith Ivory, as well as the Jennifer Crusie categories.   An embarrassment of genre riches, you might say.

Conversely, my reading of books published in the past six years has been much more “of the moment.” Instead of carefully copying down a list given to me by the friend who got me reading Romance (who is herself a long-time genre reader), I got recommendations from friends and acquaintances, from reader blogs and message boards and even from browsing shelves and online bookstores/publisher sites.

Jaili: Lucky you! At the beginning of my reading career, it was pot luck. At the time there was no internet and there weren’t many romance novels available for sale in my area. I could only get my paws on whatever were available including those from Topaz, Leisure, Tapestry, Mills & Boon (Silhouette included), Onyx, and old Avon. There were no guide or anything like it.

I think I relied on book covers alone. I picked up books by Penelope Neri, Karen Robards, Jude Deveraux, Mary Spencer, Johanna Lindsey and many others this way. (Those original covers were awesome. Today’s covers haven’t a patch on those.) My purchase decisions were heavily tied to what were available and book covers and eventually, authors’ names.

Janet: How do you think the Internet has affected the genre. Not necessarily in terms of making it easier for readers to pick books, but do you think the online community has affected the books being written and published?

Jaili: I think so, yes.   It’s funny because some authors – such as Susan Johnson and Bertrice Small – took historical research rather seriously, but there were quite a few authors who clearly flipped the bird at such an idea. Some readers wrote to the Letters of the Romantic Times magazine to complain about those historical errors, but authors still wrote with a form of editorial freedom. And now? Pfft. Some authors will have to have the guts to keep flipping the bird at the idea of taking historical research seriously.

Actually, there’s another thought rattling around in my clearly empty skull that I’m trying to articulate. I think there is a sense of innocence – or optimism? – in those old historical romances. It feels as if old historical romances were written for authors’ own pleasure, rather than for money and audience.

Janet: Writing for the sake of the book? Or maybe a book for the sake of the writing? Yes, I have an intuitive sense of exactly what you’re talking about, but I can’t really articulate it, either. There does, though, seem to be an awfully strong emphasis on the commercial aspects of genre fiction these days.

Jaili: I can’t tell if it was because those books were more detailed than today’s books that make it feel as if authors were writing for pleasure, or that authors today seem more business-like than authors of the yesteryear were. Perhaps the shortened length of today’s romances may have something to do with it? Detailed books mean leisurely pace, which equals to a sense of luxury or comfort, perhaps.

To be honest, I can’t articulate what I am trying to say well. Perhaps readers of this article will understand what I mean and explain somehow.

Anyroad, I think authors have more pressures than authors in those days because not only they have to work against shorter deadlines and shorter word counts, they have readers breathing down their necks as well as having to resist the temptation of going online.

Janet: I wonder how much pressure authors put on themselves and how much is put on them from editors, publishers, agents, and readers, though. And did publishers offer more freedom in earlier decades and did the lack of reader feedback in electronic forums, for example, encourage more or less diversity in the genre? It feels to me like there’s a lot of subgenre diversity, but maybe not so much diversity within those subgenres. Which is too bad if you’re a reader who doesn’t like a lot of different subgenres of Romance.

Jaili: So true. On the other hand, the internet makes it much easier for readers to express their thanks and gratitude to authors who wrote books they enjoyed. The internet also opens up the once-enigmatic world of romance publishing to readers, thanks to authors and editors’ willingness to share their knowledge. Meanwhile, readers give the feedback, supply the support when it’s needed, and a bit of cheerleading to keep some authors’ stamina up.   It works both ways along with the pluses and minuses.

And the best of all, the online romance community. After ten years, I still think it’s bloody awesome to meet readers and authors from all walks of life. I sometimes wondered what it would be like if the internet was widely available back then. I think if it existed then, it would affect the genre in many ways. How so? I don’t know. It’s fun to speculate, wouldn’t you think?

Janet: Definitely! Personally, I think the Internet is slowing blowing the idea that readers are of a certain type, that they are of a certain age and like certain things. And as much as there still seems to be a collective set of values within the genre, I really think that’s going to change more as the reader community shows itself to be more diverse and more diversely engaged with the genre. And I think that’s really exciting.

As for reading books pubbed in the past six years, since I have been online, I’ve had many more reading ups and downs, although I have some powerful favorites from this decade, from Shana Abe’s The Smoke Thief to Loretta Chase’s first two Carsington books to Meljean Brook’s demon series, Sherry Thomas and Meredith Duran’s historicals, Jo Bourne’s The Spymaster’s Lady, Kresley Cole’s Immortals After Dark series, and books present and future from many authors who I think are really coming into their own (Victoria Dahl & Julie Ann Long, for example). I recently started a Jill Shalvis glom, finding the way she draws relationships to be extremely well-nuanced. Roxanne St. Claire’s new Romantic Suspense was a real winner for me. And the upcoming Jo Goodman release is one of my favorites in her multi-decade body of work. I don’t think Lisa Kleypas’s writing has ever been stronger than in her recent contemporary Travis family saga. And then there are many authors (some of whom have upcoming releases) whose books I haven’t even read yet: Carolyn Jewel, Tessa Dare, Courtney Milan, Ann Aguirre, Carrie Lofty, most of Nalini Singh’s Psi series, and many I’m forgetting at the moment (sorry!).

This doesn’t mean that I think the books published today are the same as those published previously. And maybe if I only liked meaty epic historicals I’d be pining for the 90s. But as I said in my shorter books post last week, I’m not convinced that shorter books are of lesser quality, at least not because of the lower word counts. But I wonder if that’s because I’m reading all these books within such a short period of time. Had I started as a teen or even in my 20s, would that change my opinion? Would it be different if I read all the clunkers from every decade, too? I don’t know. Maybe. It seems that the real long-time readers often have strong decade-specific preferences.

Jaili: That’s the thing; the 1990s didn’t have just meaty epic historicals. To me, this type belongs to the 1980s and the 1970s. Historical romances of the 1990s were actually shorter than those from the 1980s and 1970s.

What the 1990s had were similar to today’s historical romances, but different settings – such as Viking, various American settings (Gold Rush, the South, Alaska, Americana, Western and so on), different time periods (Tudors, Medieval, etc.) of different countries (UK, Russia, South America, Australia, etc.) – and different reader expectations.

Readers today, I think, expect characters to have similar sensibilities and values to theirs, whereas readers of the 1990s expected something between the 1980s and the 2000s. Romances of each decade generally reflect the readership’s mentality and attitudes, I think.

Janet: This is an interesting point, and I fear it’s true. In fact, if there’s one thing I wish there was more of in the genre it’s a diversity of cultural, racial, ethnic, and religious values. Religion, especially, outside of Inspy books, would be great, IMO, and I’m not all that religious, lol. But I so loved Gaffney’s To Love and To Cherish and Kinsale’s Flowers From the Storm and Samuel’s Bed of Spices that I would love to see more Romances that tackled spirituality and faith issues, especially as they relate to erotic relationships.

And, of course, as someone who has a keen interest in post-colonial issues, I’d love to see more reconsiderations of those older colonial/imperial Romances, or at least of the cultural clashes. Meredith Duran’s first book, Duke of Shadows, took on the India setting, but that part of the book felt choppy to me and it felt like there should have been more of that part of it. Loretta Chase uses Egypt as a setting, but I’d love a deeper look there, too. One of the things I loved most about Judith Ivory’s Untie My Heart was the way Stuart had experienced all of these different cultural values and had sort of cobbled together a multi-national, multicultural personality. Even though we didn’t really see beyond England in the novel, the book didn’t feel to me like a colonialist/imperialist gesture. Oh, I’d love more of that kind of thing. Also, more diversity of class/economic position. Still a big taboo, in my opinion, as is race, which, as we know, is terribly marginalized and sentimentalized in the genre, even today.

Jaili: There are so many good books from that period are forgotten today. I can reel off a long list for you to check out. I’m willing to bet that readers who voted for the 1990s have had the same experiences I had: fewer expectations and a willingness to read anything available. I remember buying two romances and when I got home, I was shocked to find one was a time travel romance and the other was a bloody Irish medieval (my least favourite time period). I knew there wouldn’t be any more available until the following month, so I forced myself to read both. Luckily, I enjoyed both.

Nowadays with the internet and its resources, I can be choosy and focus on those I think will appeal to me, which isn’t necessarily a good thing. Yes, there are many readers’ favourite lists available, which is fantastic for us who have little money and time to spare, but it also makes us less adventurous that would have us losing out on lesser known books published, including those from this decade. It may explain why some readers quickly tire of certain favourite types or premises. Who knows?

Janet:   First of all, I’d love a list!!

Jaili: Heh! OK, will do. I hope readers of this article will share their lists, too.

Janet: Absolutely!

The whole 1990s issue is interesting, because I went through and checked the dates on some of my favorite books. Susan Johnson’s Pure Sin was 1994, Forbidden in 1991. Kinsale’s The Shadow and the Star was 1991. Candice Proctor’s Whispers of Heaven, 2001. I tend to associate those books as meatier historicals, but maybe the epic historicals would be stuff like the Sky O’Malley books or The Windflower (1984) or Monson’s Rangoon (1985)?

Jaili: When I think of epic historicals, I think of Forever Amber, Skye O’Malley and Woodiwiss’s famous (and infuriating) Birmingham couple. Come to think of it, I think if these were published today, they would be classified as Women’s Fiction or Historical Fiction.

The Windflower is a different breed, though, because it broke away from the epic historical romance sub-genre, which is why it was highly acclaimed. I think The Windflower was a turning point of the historical romance sub-genre. I’m trying to remember if it was Karen Robards’s Walk After Midnight that turned the romantic suspense sub-genre round on its head. My memory isn’t that reliable, I’m afraid. I do remember it was Marilyn Pappano’s Passion and Suspicion that hooked me on romantic suspense. Oh, let’s not forget Theresa Weir’s contemporary romances. I’d better shut up before I list some more.

Janet: So here’s my question, Jaili, for someone like you who has been reading Romance for much longer than myself: do you think we sentimentalize books in the genre or different periods, or do you think that some decades are just better for Romance novels?

Jaili: Yes and no. I believe some of us – myself included – sentimentalise certain eras of the genre, but books? I don’t think so. For some, these are remembered with affection because they were part of our journey as romance readers.   It doesn’t mean all could stand the test of time. Some may, but not all. This still applies to today. Take Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight, for example.

When it was released a couple years ago, it wowed quite a few romance readers, but I recently caught some of those readers saying that after rereading Twilight a couple of years later, it didn’t stand up well. However, I wouldn’t be surprised if they still regard Twilight with affection because it gave them that unforgettable moment of time.

Janet: That’s so true, and it might be why I don’t re-read a lot. I don’t want to spoil the happy memory. I’m afraid, for example, if I ever try to re-read Dara Joy’s Rejar, it’ll be all over for that book!

Jaili: Heh! I’m too scared to re-read some of old "ohmygodthisisthebestIreadinyears!’ books, such as some of Sandra Canfield’s fantastic category romances and Megan Chance’s Gilded Age historical romance, The Portrait, which features the hero as a "manic depressive".

On the other hand, some are comfort reads, such as Rene J. Garrod’s Western romantic comedy, Her Heart’s Desire (I suspect the glasses-wearing scholar hero may have something to do with my love for it), and Pamela Morsi’s Americana romances, such as Courting Miss Hattie and Runabout.

In fairness, I think some forget that each decade has its share of trends. The 1990s were crammed with Medieval & Viking romances, time travel romances, psychic heroines in romantic suspense, Western romances, Native American romances and a couple of other trends. Some of us were thoroughly sick of those, just like how some of us are sick of Regency and British-setting romances today.

But since you have quite a few old historical romances, have you read any category, contemporary and paranormal/speculative romances from that era as well?

Janet: Yes, at least to some of those. I’ve read all of the Tom and Sharon Curtis books, both as Laura London and Robin James. I’ve read some Charlotte Lamb books, all of the Crusie categories except for Glitter (is that the right title?), some old LaVyrle Spencer, oh! and a bunch of Mary Balogh categories (which I prefer to her single titles, actually). And Kathleen Gilles Seidel, Anne Stuart’s Ritual Sins, some of Susan Elizabeth Phillips’s contemps (Dream a Little Dream is my favorite, I think), Linda Howard’s After the Night, Now You See Her, Dream Man, Shades of Twilght, as well as the whole Kell Sabin series (from Midnight Rainbow to White Lies), and much more that I can’t even remember right now.

Jaili: Kathleen Gilles Seidel! Her books are fantastic. Well worth reading. Same for Sarah Bird’s The Boyfriend School, Marilyn Pappano and other authors I mentioned at the start. I think it’d be good for romance readers to have a look around in used bookshops because there are many forgotten gems waiting to be found.

Related posts:

1. Golden Era of Romance
2. 2009 RITA/Golden Heart Contest Controversy: Ebook Authors Need Not Apply
3. Top Ten Reasons I’m Thankful for Romance

Do you think that there is a Golden Era of Romance?

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1. 2008 Golden Heart WINNER for Inspirational Romance
2. 2008 Golden Heart WINNER for Contemporary Single Title Romance
3. 2008 Golden Heart WINNER for Paranormal Romance

Every Thanksgiving, we have tried to post something positive, something to show our thanks for the community of readers here.   This year, we are providing a self help guide, so to speak, for the community to respond to those around us who might question the reading choices we have brought with us on holiday.   

We women always seem to be apologizing for something.   We were birthed with the words “I’m sorry” on our lips.   We are apologetic we were first born female. When we arrive at womanhood, we are apologetic for being too loose or conversely too prudish.   We are sorry for staying at home or choosing to work and sending our kids to daycare.   We are sorry that we put ambition before family or family before ambition.   We are sorry for the fact that our stepping away from the partnership track hurts the chances of women behind us.   We are sorry for criticizing those who do hurt the cause of female professionalism.   We are sorry that we have kids and that we don’t have kids or that if we do have kids, we have too many or too few.   We are sorry we spent the morning reading when we could be doing laundry, washing the dishes, coloring with our children, catering to our husband, or talking to our friends, our moms, our dads on the phone.

Last week I wrote about my own reader bias.   When Mike Cane first confronted me with his incredulity that I rarely read male authors, my first response was a defensive one and an apologetic one. No, I don’t read solely female authors.   But I think my first response should have been “why not?” because the fact is, I get plenty of penis point of view and always have.   I’ve been through 7 years of post secondary education. I remember in philosophy class that my professor called the cadre of philosophers DWEBS – Dead White English Boys.   The entirety of my education was dominated by men.   The only female professors I had was in history (she was a women’s history specialist) and in contracts in law school.   My bosses have all been male. I would venture that 85% of the opinions I read are authored by men.   Judges on the bench?   Largely white and male.   The penis and its thought process is everywhere – i.e., Viagra is covered by insurance but birth control is not.

If I spend the entirety of my pleasure reading time devoted to female voices, I should not have to apologize for that. I should be able to glory in it. Yes, in my escape from the world, the pressures of the job, the role of the wife, mother, daughter, I choose to read women authors writing about falling in love forever and amen.   To anyone who might feel like I do, I suggest measuring yourself against the Romance Apologia Scale.

***

When people say “you read romance?” in that derisive questioning way, the correct response is

1. Only when standing in line to get groceries.
2. I’m just buying this for my mom.
3. I do, and let me tell you why.
4. Fuck off.

Is that a naked man on the cover of your book?

1. Is it? I hadn’t noticed. A friend recommended it to me.
2. I thought it was the newest edition of Gray’s Anatomy.
3. The naked man is simply a visual mnemonic for the kind of meaningful emotional story that is sometimes classified as romance, much like how a gravestone is symbolic of death.
4. Fuck off.

Isn’t romance formulaic?

1. I don’t know. I’m buying this for my sister.
2. This is my first one.
3. If by formulaic you mean subject to certain genre constraints that epitomize genre books like mysteries and science fiction.
4. Fuck off

Don’t you get bored with the HEA?

1. I have no idea what you’re talking about.
2. You have no idea what you’re talking about.
3. Are you kidding? That’s the whole reason we read romance.
4. Fuck off.

Aren’t those books just about sex?

1. I don’t know.   I just found this on the park bench and wanted to help with the “no littering” effort.
2. No idea, but my shrink recommended a bottle of wine, a romance novel, and a vibrator for relaxation therapy.
3. They’re as much about sex as Moby Dick is about chasing a whale. It happens, but it’s not the point.
4. Fuck off

Romance is trash.

1. My father brought them home from the Goodwill drop off.
2. I was just taking this to the trash can.   I think it fell out of my neighbor’s bags.
3. You must have read a lot of them to make a sweeping judgment like that. Try another and make it two.
4. Fuck off

My mom used to read those “bodice rippers.”

1. This is my mom’s book.
2. Do they still call them that?
3. The genre has progressed way beyond that stereotypical plotline in the past 30 years. Why don’t you try one and see what you think?
4. Fuck off.

Why don’t you read something else?

1. Good idea– what do you recommend?
2. Maybe I will, after I find out what happens next in this book.
3. Because reading romances makes me happy.
4. Fuck off.

****

Every time you answered a question with 1, give yourself a 1.   For every question you answered 2, give yourself a 2 and so on and so forth. Add up and see where you fall on the Scale:

8-15:   You are suffering from severe Apologia and should immediately seek help from the School of Certitude. Unchecked,  Apologia   could lead to a lifelong ailment requiring heavy foundation to cover constant blushing, a ready brown paper bag for all packages, and a quip book due to lack of a good comeback.

16-23:   You are teetering on the edge of needing treatment but have passed the intervention stage.   Practice a few “fuck offs” in the mirror everyday.      

23-31:   You are in Explanatory mode. You believe that your actions can and should be defended even to those who will never accord you the same regard. Stuck in this mode, you will become Serious Sally who no one wants to sit next to in class.

32:   You have conquered Apologia and should be in line to be the next candidate a heart beat away from something. Furthermore, you can say, do, and read whatever you like because frankly, my dear, you don’t give a damn.

***

Happy Holidays Dear Author Community! We are thankful that you visit, lurk, comment, and vigorously debate with us.

Related posts:

1. Romance Publishers Promises to Romance Readers Part 1: False Promises
2. REVIEW: Don’t Fence Me In by Marianne Arkins
3. Romance Publishers Promises to Romance Readers Part 2: Branding

It seems only yesterday we were reading about various “traditionalist” attacks on Erotic Romance.   Remember the graphical standards debacle?   Or how about the accusations that GBLT and polyamorous Romance weren’t real Romance?   But the intervening years have shown that Erotic Romance is not only a viable subgenre, but is, in fact, as much real Romance as any other “respectable” subgenre.   Oh, I know not everyone is thrilled with some of the more explicit directions the genre has taken, but the Romance community and genre is large enough that the diversity can be pretty easily accommodated.

One of the reasons I think Erotic Romance has faced so much controversy is the way it can sometimes blur into straight erotica or even pornography – that is, away from the emotional journey of lovers and into the sexual odysseys we generally associate with pure erotic narrative.   And indeed, depending on how a reader connects to a book in question, arguments about how to label specific works are not uncommon.   Yet structurally speaking, the boundaries of Erotic Romance are clear, or at least as clear as the formal boundaries for Romance are.   A love story, a strong focus on the development of the love relationship, a happy resolution for the lovers.   That Erotic Romance may articulate the development of the characters and their journey to love primarily through sex does not make Erotic Romance any less romantic or any weaker as generic Romance, nor does it mean Erotic Romance authors can’t really push the envelope.

What does weaken Erotic Romance, in my opinion, is knowingly or negligently placing works that are not Romance into its categorical space in order to take advantage of the bounty that hotter Romance appears to represent to authors and publishers alike.   And what I mean by “negligently” is without knowing or making any effort to know and understand the Romance genre, and without any apparent desire to work within its extremely generous formalistic boundaries.   Because, seriously, it’s not that exclusive to demand that the term “Romance” characterize books that focus on a love relationship and a happy resolution in that relationship.   There’s a lot of space in that definition for innovative, envelope-pushing, provocative, fresh, challenging fiction.   But anyone wanting to write genre Romance is probably going to have to do more than read the definition as it’s posted on the Romance Wiki or on the RWA website.   Because not everyone is going to have the kind of luck Gene from the new season of Top Chef had when he created a classic Indian dish without knowing anything about Indian cooking.   Most of us have to understand the rules before we know how to break them effectively.

So to answer the question before it’s asked, yes, this post is partially a response to the ongoing Ravenous Romance discussion.   And no, I don’t know for sure that the books they end up publishing are going to be erotica or porn dressed up as Romance, regardless of what anyone associated with the publisher might say.   But this is not the first time we’ve seen the erotica as Romance problem arise, and I’m sure it won’t be the last.   And since I’ve been reading more and more Erotic Romance (as a natural consequence of the market’s expansion), I’ve become pretty emphatic about believing that there is a clear distinction between erotic Romance as a subgenre of Romance, and that the distinction lies in the focus on love and emotional growth within the story.   Further, I think it is damn difficult to write really awesome Erotic Romance, to imbue a lot of sexual content with equally prevalent emotional impact, and to mirror that intensity with potently written sex.   Writing emotionally powerful Romance is difficult enough, but using sex as a vehicle to communicate that power sets an even higher bar, in my opinion, because catalyzing that ecstatic combination in the reader of sexual arousal and empathetic connection with the story is a multi-layered challenge.

Yes, I know there are books categorized as Erotic Romance that have and will continue to provoke debate – that they’re straight erotic or pornography, that they’re too tame, that they’re sexist, that they’re badly written, etc. etc. Also, each reader has a different sensibility around sexual explicitness – what is really out there to one reader will read as positively conventional to another.   And we are well aware that the lure of Romance’s substantial market share can create the illusion that it’s easy to write or sell Romance to the hungry masses of Romance readers.   There are many things that will continue to complicate our discussion of the relationship between Erotic Romance, erotica, and pornography.   And on the surface, "Erotic Romance is merely erotica with a happy ending’ arguments may appear to be more sex positive (especially when they capitalize on the sector of Romance readers who prefer more conventional genre books).   But in reality, I don’t think erotica is more sex-positive, because what is more sex positive than offering readers an experience of incredibly hot sex and happiness for the people having it?   That doesn’t mean I think Erotic Romance is more sex positive than erotica, either; it just means that I don’t think Romance is or should be a “respectability cover” for erotica or pornography.

Although I think some people believe that it is, and I wonder if the marketing of erotica as Erotic Romance is a product of this belief, as incredibly insulting as it is (to erotic and romantic work).   Some of it is just plain profiteering, I’m sure, as publishers and authors marvel over the market share Romance commands.   And the profound genre loyalty of Romance readers, I believe, means that we have a built-in trust toward books that are labeled Romance.   So we buy and if we are disappointed, we most often simply move on.   But we remain loyal to the Romance label, a label that, in the entire field of genre labeling, does not enjoy a great deal of mainstream respect.   Which means that if a publisher is labeling its books Romance, it’s aiming specifically at a Romance readership, not aiming for widespread literary respect.   We saw this with Aphrodisia and with Juno’s Paranormal Romance line, and now with Ravenous Romance.   And I have to say that Ravenous Romance’s intentions regarding the Romance readership are about as clear as mud to me right now.   Are they selling porn, as one author insists?   Are they selling erotica, as their TwittErotica contest (not to mention various comments by related parties) suggests?   Or are they selling what their publishing name advertises?

Because when I pick up a book labeled Erotic Romance, that’s exactly what I want:   hot sex and loving happiness for the people having it.   I want to know that I will be taken on a journey in which the emotional relationship between the characters will largely be communicated through their sexual experiences.   I want to be turned on from head to toe, to put it bluntly, and at the end of the book I want to know I’ve just read a love story.   If I want another experience as a reader, I will turn to another genre, whether that is literary fiction, SF/F, erotica, mystery, or autobiography.   There is enough room for everyone in the literary market, just not necessarily in Romance.

Related posts:

1. Misinformation or Affirmation – You be the judge
2. Mis Labelling
3. The Insubordinate by Miranda Heart

I’ve been fatigued by the scandals and the bad behavior and the general discontent that’s going on these days. It seems like you can’t turn around without tripping over someone inserting their foot into their mouth and then some. The problem with that is there are actually some wonderful things going on this year in romance and the online romance community. I thought of a few, in no particular order:

• Authortalk interviews. These are some of the best promotional videos I have seen since the start of the book trailer. The book birthing scene in the Kresley Cole interview was hilarious as was the scene in the Rachel Vincent one where Gina Showalter disgustingly draws on cat whiskers in eyeliner pencil on Vincent’s face. I even noticed that I started saying Savor Me SLOOOOWWLLLLYY whenever I see the title of Gina’s latest book.
• The serial novel as started on author Dionne Galace’s blog, made popular by Bettie Sharpe’s retelling of Cinderella in Ember and satirized in Tumperkin’s fabulous The Unfeasibly Tall Greek Billionaires’ Blackmailed Martyr-Complex Secretary Mistress Bride.
• Cover snark by Smart Bitches and Dionne Galace, helping us take the genre less seriously.
• Blogger crusades to promote things like Lisa Kleypas’ book, Dreaming of You, and then Lisa Kleypas making memories with said blogger crusader, Kristie J (one of my all time favorite RWA moments).
• Having a legitimate reason to talk about sex toys.
• Getting to post about dildoes just for the fun of posting about dildoes (in other words, getting to post about dildoes for no legitimate reason).
• Brenda Novak’s Diabetes Auction. It starts May 1st and runs until May 31st.
• All About Romance’s Aid fundraisers.
• Seeing books of authors that you love make the bestseller list like Patricia Briggs‘ No. 1 placement or new author, Ilona Andrews, with her No. 32 placement.
• Seeing great new authors in your favorite genre (historical for me): Sherry Thomas and Joanna Bourne.
• Having a place to talk about my favorite hobby with really, really smart women.
• Finding a new love in an unlikely place: Lara Adrian (had a tepid reaction to Kiss of Midnight but fell in love with her writing with Midnight Awakening); Maya Banks (hated For Her Pleasure but went on a buying spree after Into the Mist and Sweet Surrender).
• Making new friends with whom I spend way too many late Wednesday nights talking about romance books and the romance industry after Top Chef and Project Runway. (What will be our starting show after Top Chef is over. And OMG what are we to do with the Lifetime coopting Project Runway. Who will be the advertisers now? Pampers? Make the best couture gown you can out of the wadded cotton?).
• The awesomesauce that is SB Sarah who was the greatest partner possible in the DA BWAHA tournament.
• Ebooks. Yep, I went there. I love ebooks and I always will, both from small print epublishers like Samhain to the big publishers like Harlequin who is really technologically forward.
• Making dirty movies with Legos. (Thanks for being a good sport, Claudia Dain).
• Resources like Historical Romance, and the Romance Wiki and Teach Me Tonight.
• All the authors, publishers, publicists, editors, agents, reviewers, industry folks, bloggers, and most importantly, readers, who have come together for community.

Are there others? You bet, but this is what I thought of. How about you?

Related posts:

1. 10 Things in Romance I’m Thankful For
2. 10 Things in Romance I’m Thankful For
3. 10 Things I’m Thankful for Romance

A legitimate criticism of romance as serious literature is it’s often cavalier treatment of important life topics. Too often, war, separation, human indignity, are treated as plot devices, conflict mechanisms, and not given the attention and treatment those important issues deserve. How many romance books are thought provoking? How many challenge your personal concepts of right and wrong? How many portray multi hued individuals as both heroic and villianous? Surely within the umbrella of the romance genre, there is room for these books.

Now, this is not to say that I think we should be preached to. Nor am I saying that romance should be about more serious issues. What I am saying is that the lack of these types of books within the genre does not help its image as frivolous literature.

Let me provide some examples. I tend to shy away from books about war and terrorism and I think that either authors are not writing these books or publishers are not buying them because I’ve seen a decline. The Navy SEAL became, for a short time in romance literature, a shorthand for alpha male protector in the contemporary romance ouvre. The problem is that too many of our personal lives have been touched by soldiers in combat and therefore the ability to read these romantisized versions has become less easy.

On Sunday, the death toll in Iraq for American soliders turned 4000. It is more lives than was lost in 9-11. And as we passed the 4000 mark, the 4001 death will be quickly upon us. The death toll of soldiers doesn’t even begin to tell the story of loss. It doesn’t tell us of the loss of Iraqi life. Or the losses continue once the soldiers return homebound. Because mental illness is not one that is measured by CT Scans or MRIs or some other objective test, it is often dismissed as un important but a military task force reported that 38 percent of soldiers “report psychological concerns such as traumatic brain injury and post-traumatic stress disorder after returning from deployment.”

So many books give male heroes a military background without having that experience mark them in some way. It is common for both contemporaries and historicals to feature these war heroes whose missions in battle have no affect on them when they return. Is that really plausible? I don’t believe so. Could anyone could live in combat zones with the mission of kill or be killed and come out unchanged?

There are a few books that deal with emotional traumas like Suzanne Enoch’s England’s Perfect Hero (Hero is a PTSD sufferer) or Carla Kelly’s Beau Crusoe (man stranded for five years). I am sure that there are others that I can’t recall at this point, but the majority of romances don’t deal with the consequences of choosing a particular backdrop such as experience in combat. It’s not dissimilar to discussions we had last week about the worldbuilding issues that are weak within the genre.

Take, for example, the villian. Almost all romances contain a villian. Some very bad, very evil character who thwarts the happiness of some character. Villians are caricatures at times and authors have employed different standard devices to show how truly bad they are. Villians usually have perverse sex (sometimes incestual sex). They often times treat women and animals poorly. They are infidelitous. The problem with using villians as a plot device is that it creates some hard and fast rules about the good and the bad. One thing that I appreciated about Joanna Bourne’s The Spymaster’s Lady was the portrayal that not all French were bad and not all English were good. Linda Howard’s villian in All the Queen’s Men killed people, wreaked havoc on lives, engaged in illegal arms trade, but all to save his daughter. It made him moderately redeemable.

It is not just with the war that romance trivializes important concepts. I stopped reading Christina Dodd because of her series of three adopted children and their search for each other. Dodd’s treatment of adoption in the book was cursory at best. I don’t know if she spent time talking to adopted children or reading books about adoption, but the characters lacked any emotional realism of the issue that could have been used effectively to move the emotional arc. However, in the first two books, it was clear to me that the topic of adoption was merely a plot device and not one that was going to be dealt with in any deeper emotional context. For me, as an adopted child, this trivialization of an important emotional and social topic was too demeaning. (I’ve since started reading Dodd again in her paranormal iteration because hers is a voice I enjoy).

The point that I am trying to make is that there are few romance books that take on serious social concerns and actually deal with those traumas. Instead of just giving a character a job or a backstory and not dealing with consequences, I want authors to choose deliberately. If you are going to make your character a soldier, ask if the soldier will have any post combat difficulties either in connecting with other people or coping with the day to day activities of life. If you are going to make a character adopted, why not use the issues of abandonment, separation, identity issues, to make a more poignant character arc. This is not to say a book can’t be frothy and light, even if the hero is a soldier. It just that I want, as Jan said last week, for authors to have thought about the repercussions of giving the hero that backdrop.

I don’t think world building is about explanations either. It’s about, as you say, adding the right amount of detail. But crucial to that detail is consistency. Writers don’t need to put the system of religion on a page unless it’s necessary for the reader to understand the story. But if a writer refers to anything religious, they’d darn well better think of the repercussions of the choice they’ve made.

In High Noon by Nora Roberts tries to address the issue of agoraphobia of the heroine’s mother and how that affects the romance between the hero and heroine. Kathleen O’Reilly tries to address the issue of loss in 9-11 in Sex, Straight Up. Can a New Yorker ever get past 9-11 when the city won’t let it. It was a very touching question.

I’m not saying that there isn’t a place for froth, fun, and entertainment. I love those books just as much as the next person. I am saying that the inability or unwillingness to really understand and tackle the serious issues that romance authors blithely use to further the action or create tension is a weakness in the genre. This, of course, is not an issue that is solely germane to romance. John Rickards, an acclaimed thriller writer, stated much the same thing about his own genre, urging his fellow authors to move beyond doing unspeakable things to children in writing just for the drama of it.

We’ve covered how crime can tear a family apart many times. There have been hundreds of books in which suspicion falls upon the wrong individual. I doubt there is anything more to say about the tragic loss of a child that hasn’t already been said.

I enjoy some emotional justice as much as the next person. In Lynne Connolly’s Rose and Richard series, Rose is a poor village girl who ends up marrying very well. At some point, Rose and her husband, the delicious Richard, return to Rose’s village with great pomp and circumstance, rubbing the locals’ collective nose in her good fortune. It’s a great scene. So I am not advocating for the removal of villians or the removal of emotional justice. I am advocating for more romances to tackle, seriously, hard issues and morally ambiguous characters. I think there is room under the tent for them and I think that those books would lend some grativas to the genre.

Related posts:

1. Ebookwise Conversion Issues
2. Marvel Comics Makes 2500 Back Issues Available Online
3. Tailor-made Romances

Let’s face it. Of all the names in romance, the one that gets hit the biggest is Harlequin. Harlequin writers take blows to the face from all corners, including its own genre. Some romance writers have been known to say something akin to “not all books are Harlequins” in defense of the romance genre as if to be a Harlequin writer is worse than, well, self publishing.

I remember as a young teen reader that I devoured those Harlequin Presents but as I got older my tastes matured and I turned away from the category book. They weren’t representative of the genre and mostly dealt with secretaries falling for their insufferable bosses. Having had an insufferable boss more than one time, I simply could not relate. Truth is, though, I had been reading categories all the time but kept thinking that the ones I chose were the “exception” rather than the rule.

I read categories by authors like Judith Duncan, Ruth Wind, and Kathleen Gilles Seidel. I have books on my shelf with numbers on their spine and names on the front like Nora Roberts, Jennifer Crusie, and Linda Howard. I’ve read any number of big name authors in their category form and sometimes, I have preferred their categories to their single titles. While Welcome to Temptation is probably my favorite Crusie novel, I’ve read and re-read Getting Rid Of Bradley, What The Lady Wants, and Manhunting so many times, it is a good thing I now have them in “e format” lest the pages wear down to little balls of pulp from the constant handling. Linda Howard’s Kell Sabin series have ranked right up there in favorite books of all time. Seidel wrote about progressive women and their relationship problems at the cusp of the women’s power suit emergence.

Of course, the question is whether Duncan, Wind, Seidel, Howard, Crusie and Roberts are the exception or the norm? Or another way to say it is whether good writing with the category genre is the exception or the norm? Because if good writing is the norm within the category genre, then Harlequin being the ugly reheaded baseborn stepchild is simply wrong.

There are any number of reasons that those books sold at the grocery store and discount retailers are viewed with great disdain. I can point to the titles: The Sheik and the Virgin Secretary, The Billionaire’s Bidding, Millionaire’s Calculated Baby Bid, Willingly Bedded, Forcibly Wedded. How can you not mock books with those titles? The packaging tends to invite speculation that the books are interchangeable or factory assembled.

Many arguments about Harlequin center around the restrictive guidelines for the lines. To write a book within those restrictions, I would argue, takes a great deal of talent, not less talent. So the category romance sub genre is full of good writers. Is anyone really willing to state otherwise? Sure, there are bad apples among the bunch. Given that there are 104 books released each month, there is no possible way that all books are going to be of the same quality.

What I have found is that there are surprisingly level headed, strong willed heroines in these books. That while the Black Dagger Brotherhood and its progeny is all about the boys, many of these category novels are all about the girls. The Sheik and The Virgin Secretary is really the story about Kylie. Beyond Breathless is a story about Jamie. Billionaire Next Door is about Lizzie Bond.

As for reflecting a more modern sensibility, of all the category books, I’ve read, I would say that less than 50% of them end in a marriage proposal. In fact, in the Million Dollar Secrets series, I just finished reading Tall, Dark and Filthy Rich* and neither of the two mentioned previous couples are married. One couple is living together and one couple is dating. In the “Red Choo Diaries”, there is no marriage proposal at the end of Beyond Breathless for Jamie and Andrew. In fact, the proposal takes place in book 2 of the “Red Choo Diaries” and I think the marriage takes place in book 3. There is a also a surprising lack of fecundity in these books. I do admit to picking books that DO NOT feature a baby on the cover so some self selection might be taking place.

I guess what I am trying to say is let’s talk about the pre conceived notion that readers may have about categories and see if they ring true. It might be that the books are too sappy or that there is something about them that will always turn you off. I admit that I haven’t read a book from the Harlequin Superromance line because of the number of babies appearing on the covers and that I’ve stopped reading Nocturne after five disappointing books in a row. But I am ready to step up with my confession.

Hello, my name is Jane and I read category romance . . .

*The title is kind of misleading because the hero is not really filthy rich.

Related posts:

1. Romance Publishers Promises to Romance Readers Part 2: Branding
2. Does the romance genre need to be more expansive?
3. All About Romance Reader’s Poll Results Online