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The Big Romantic Gesture by KatiD

Guest Reviewer — Tue, 28 Feb 2012 10:00:28 +0000

Today’s wonderful piece is written by KatiD of Katidom. Kati has been reading romances for twenty five years. Her first romance was Irish Thoroughbred by Nora Roberts. You can find her on her website: http://www.katidom.com/ or via Twitter at @KatiD.

There are spoilers for A Kingdom of Dreams by Judith McNaught, Warpize by Elizabeth Vaughn, Angel’s Blood by Nalini Singh in the following post. Enjoy!

Remember in the movie Say Anything when Lloyd Dobbler, broken-hearted that Diane Court had ended their relationship, stood outside her window while she was napping blasting Peter Gabriel’s In Your Eyes? Rather than thinking of this as creepy, stalkerish behavior, my teenage heart swooned. Imagine, a boy who will do anything to win your love. When I look back on the scene now, I still see the teenage romance of it, but also think if I’d been Diane’s parent, I’d have run him off. But my point is Lloyd standing there with the boom box is what began my lifelong love affair with the Big Romantic Gesture.

Many of my favorite romances have them: gestures so grandiose, so big that they make the reader certain that the love between the hero and heroine will last forever. After all, if they’re willing to give up everything, dare anything for love, it must be the love of a lifetime. When I started thinking about the Big Romantic Gestures that stand out most to me in my years of reading romance, there were three that came to mind.

First, in Judith McNaught’s A Kingdom of Dreams, Jennifer Merrick, a plucky young heroine is abducted from a convent and forced to marry her family’s lifelong enemy, Royce Westmoreland, Duke of Claymore. Claymore is the champion of the king, his finest weapon, and a man who lives his life on the battlefield. He certainly knows nothing of love or tenderness. And yet Jenny challenges him constantly, and bewitches him with her intelligence and her willingness to do anything to uphold her family’s honor. Soon the two find themselves falling in love until Royce kills Jenny’s brother who he thought was drawing a knife to kill him, despite giving Jenny his word that he’d not harm her family. The king convenes a tournament, and commands Royce to participate. Royce is determined to honor his promise to not draw another drop of Merrick blood which allows Jenny’s family, also participating in the tournament, to do their best to kill him. That is until…

Through the haze of sweat and blood and pain that blurred his vision and fogged his mind, Royce thought for a moment he saw the figure of a woman running – running toward him, her uncovered hair tossing about her, glinting in the sun with red and gold. Jennifer! In disbelief, he squinted, staring, while the earsplitting thunder of the crowd rose higher and higher.

Royce groaned inwardly, trying to push himself to his feet with his unbroken right arm. Jennifer had come back – now, to witness his defeat. Or his death. Even so, he didn’t want her to see him die groveling, and with the last ounce of strength he possessed, he managed to stagger to his feet. Reaching up, he wiped the back of his hand across his eyes, his vision cleared, and he realized he was not imagining it. Jennifer was moving toward him, and an eerie silence was descending over the crowd.

Jenny stifled a scream when she was close enough to see his arm dangling brokenly at his side. She stopped in front of him, and her father’s bellow from the sidelines made her head jerk toward the lance lying at Royce’s feet. “Use it!” he thundered. “Use the lance, Jennifer.”

Royce understood then why she had come; she had come to finish the task her relatives had begun; to do to him what he had done to her brother. Unmoving, he watched her, noting that tears were pouring down her beautiful face as she slowly bent down. But instead of reaching for his lance or her dagger, she took his hand between both of hers and pressed her lips to it. Through his daze of pain and confusion, Royce finally understood that she was kneeling to him, and a groan tore from his chest: “Darling” he said brokenly, tightening his hand, trying to make her stand, “don’t do this…”

But his wife wouldn’t listen. In front of seven thousand onlookers, Jennifer Merrick Westmoreland, countess of Rockbourn, knelt before her husband in a public act of humble obeisance, her face pressed to his hand, her shoulders wrenched with violent sobs.

A Kingdom of Dreams, Judith McNaught (pp 420-421)

The second example comes from The Warlords of the Plains series by Elizabeth Vaughan. In Warprize, Xylara is the daughter of the warrior king, Xyron. When her father dies, her insane half-brother inherits the throne. The kingdom’s fiercest enemies, the Firelanders, have come to overthrow the kingdom. Xylara, a trained healer, begins healing the Firelander prisoners, and gets to know them. She learns their language and some of their customs and her respect for their way of life grows. Lara never expects that Keir of the Cat, the leader of the Firelanders, would sneak into the encampment to check on his warriors, nor did she expect that he would demand her in exchange for peace. Her brother agrees, telling Lara that she will be a slave, a Warprize, in order to ensure peace for her people. Lara, being a loyal servant of the crown goes, assuming that she’ll be treated as a slave and concubine to Keir. But in the Firelander encampment, Lara finds peace and love with the fierce leader of her country’s enemy. In the end, Keir decides he must leave Lara in Xy as the newly ascended leader of the kingdom, while he and his people return to Xy.

The sky was a vibrant orange when I finally heard the thunder of hooves behind me. I didn’t turn, just continued to walk at a steady pace. For a brief moment, I feared that Simus or Other had sent troops after me. But instead, as Simus had predicted, the first of the rear scouts moved past me at a gallop, their horses veering around me. One looked back, and let out a yelp of surprise. He pulled on the reins so hard his horse reared, legs splayed in its effort to stop. The other scout, hearing the noise, pulled his sword, and turned off the road, arcing back to me.

I ignored them and kept walking.

The first scout came up on horseback. “Warprize?” he asked, looking horrified. I looked up to see Tant, the warrior that had been whipped for falling asleep on watch.

The other scout came up, scanning for danger. He glanced at his partner. “That’s the Warprize?” […]
It seemed like hours before there was a commotion ahead of us. A cloud of dust betrayed the horsemen coming hard and fast up the road. My self-appointed guard faded back as Keir came thundering into view, galloping his horse, his scarlet cloak flaring behind him. There were a few more men behind him. I stopped and stood where I was, waiting.

Keir reared his horse to a stop in front of me. The animal towered over me, and I could hear its harsh breathing. I kept my eyes down, on the road.

“What in the name of all the elements do you think you are doing?” Keir thundered.

“Following my Warlord.” I kept my voice steady.

Warprize, Elizabeth Vaughan [pp. 311-312]

In both cases the heroine gives up everything she’s known for love of her hero – the Big Romantic Gesture. The gestures, so enormous that the reader is assured of the enduring love between the couple.

So how about the heroes? I struggled thinking of a hero who made the Big Romantic Gesture. Then I took to Twitter and was reminded of the actions of Raphael, Archangel of New York in Nalini Singh’s Angel’s Blood. When Uram, an archangel and a member of the Cadre of Ten archangels who rule the world, goes rogue, falling into bloodlust, the archangels must turn to Hunter Born Elena Devereaux to hunt down the threat to humans, vampires and angels alike. Having lived millennia, he’s lost almost all of his humanity, but when he meets Elena he is captivated. Elena is both terrified and undeniably attracted to Raphael, and due to the extreme danger of her hunt, she is very close proximity to him almost constantly. But as they get closer, Raphael realizes that he is losing just a bit of his immortality through his attraction to Elena. This loss could jeopardize his rule, but Raphael can’t help himself. He’s never had anyone treat him with anything other than deference, and Elena is anything but deferential. As Elena and Raphael track the rogue archangel, they fall deeper and deeper in love.

During the final confrontation with Uram, Elena sustains life-threatening wounds.

One of Uram’s last, desperate bolts had hit the building. Raphael knew Elena had to have been on the very edge of the eight-story structure when she’d shot up at Uram. That edge was now gone, but he could feel Elena’s life, feel her dying flame. Elena, answer me.

Quiet, peaceful, a hush of sounds. Then, Stay a little human, won’t you Raphael?

A request that was almost not a sound at all. But it was enough. He followed the mental thread to discover her broken body on the narrow ledge provided by a precariously hanging neon sign. Her back was shattered, her legs twisted in a way that was nothing natural. But she smiled when she saw him. And her hand still held the gun that had saved more lives than anyone would ever know.

He dared not touch her, afraid he’d cause her to slip over the ledge. “You are not to die.”

A slow blink. “Bossy.” It was a sound bubbled through with blood. The voice isn’t working so good. […]
His canines elongated, and a strange, beautiful, golden taste filled his mouth as he felt a tear slide down his face. He was an archangel. He had not cried in over a thousand years. […]
His heart stopped beating when her voice faded, and he leaned forward, his mouth overwhelmed by the taste of beauty, of life. “I won’t let you die. I had your blood tested. You’re compatible.”

Her lashes struggled to open, failed. But her mental voice, though weak, was adamant. I don’t want to be a vampire. Bloodsucking’s not my thing.

“You must live.” And then he kissed her, feeding that golden taste, that intoxicating blend into her mouth. You must live.

That was when the sign gave away, tearing loose from the building and plunging to the ground in a shattering crash. Elena didn’t fall alone, gathered as she was in Raphael’s arms, his mouth fused with hers. They fell together, his wings close to destroyed, his soul melded to that of a mortal.

If this is death, Guild Hunter, he thought to his mortal as angelfire scored through his boned and touched his heart, then I will see you on the other side.

Angel’s Blood, Nalini Singh [Kindle location: 4442-4470]

Raphael’s sacrifice, giving up his life as one of the most powerful beings in the world, his rule in the Cadre of Ten, his very immortality, is the very essence of the Big Romantic Gesture. He gives up everything for love.

The Big Romantic Gesture is not a necessary element of a successful romance, in fact, it’s somewhat rare. But when an author successfully writes it, it causes what I call the “big sigh” of a reading experience. For it to be effective the author must build the foundation – both conflict and romance. The stakes must be raised in order for the gesture to carry the weight of the “ultimate sacrifice”. If the author fails to establish the foundation, they risk the gesture being tell, not show. When it is successful, it confirms for the reader that the couple’s Happily Ever After is a foregone conclusion.

Wednesday News and Deals: Romance novels are feminist documents

Jane — Wed, 15 Feb 2012 16:00:00 +0000

From reader Shula is this fantastic article about romances at The Awl. According to the reader, “The Awl is one of a quartet of blogs (think Gawker media) that also includes The Hairpin, a ladyblog. What I thought particularly interesting was that instead of posting the article there, where one might assume something written by a woman on the subject of the “Golden Age” of Mills and Boon would go, it went up on the general interest Awl instead.”

Romance novels are feminist documents. They’re written almost exclusively by women, for women, and are concerned with women: their relations in family, love and marriage, their place in society and the world, and their dreams for the future. Romances of the Golden Age are rife with the sociopolitical limitations of their period, it must be said. They’re exclusively hetero, and exclusively white, for example. Even so, they can be strangely sublime.

It’s a marvelous essay that addresses the bad (see above) and the great (see above). In sum, read the article.

*****

Book Smuggler Thea is working on her thesis – a hypothetical international publisher of speculative fiction ebooks and select high-quality print books. You can access the survey here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/viewform?formkey=dDZNQzMzaVEtZTZEd3RDTlJOWEoxT2c6MQ. Please help Book Smuggler Thea out on this peeps. The more data she has, the more invaluable her research.

*****

All Romance released its compilation of AAR readers’ awards. The romance best book was The Black Hawk by Joanna Bourne. We hosted a lovely guest review of that book.

*****
This is a really important piece about the sad state of journalism. I’m not sure how many people read Tech Crunch (maybe not many) but Michael Arrington and his cadre of writers appear to be in the protection racket. Invest in us and we’ll promote you. Don’t and we’ll savage you. This all came to a head after one of the start ups, the creators of an iOS App called Path, was discovered to have been uploading all the data from a user’s phonebook.

*****

Amazon is trying to boost its margin (or at least its profit). Amazon Mom’s is a program directed toward young mothers. It offers three months of free two day shipping and discounts on diapers, wipes and other baby products. Now, Amazon has reduced the benefit.

As of January 24, 2012, however, the maximum discount on diapers and wipes is 20 percent and it’s only available to Prime members. Customers who join Amazon Mom in 2012 get three months of free two-day shipping, and can no longer receive additional free months. “To continue receiving all the benefits of Amazon Mom, join Amazon Prime for $79/year,” the company e-mailed customers.

Moms are mad and have launched a change.org petition. Via Paid Content.

Deals

Perfect Partners by Carly Phillips * $0.99 * A | BN | K|
Once Upon a Wicked Night by Jennifer Haymore * $0.99 * A | BN | K|
Solitary Man by Carly Phillips * $0.99 * A | BN | K|
The Right Choice by Carly Phillips * $0.99 * A | BN | K|
A Dance in the Dark by Karen Ranney * $0.99 * A | BN | K|
Only Love by Elizabeth Lowell * $1.99 * A | BN | K|
Only His by Elizabeth Lowell * $1.99 * A | BN | K|
Only You by Elizabeth Lowell * $1.99 * A | BN | K|
The Inn at Eagle Point by Sherryl Woods * $2.14 * A | BN | K|
Charming the Shrew by Laurin Wittig * $2.99 * A | BN | K|
Exclusively Yours by Shannon Stacey * $2.99 * A | BN | K|
The Big Bad Wolf Romance Bundle by Heather Killough-Walden * $3.99 * A | BN | K |

Jane’s List of Things She’d Like to See in 2012 from the Romance Genre

Jane — Tue, 03 Jan 2012 10:00:41 +0000

Maili suggested I do a prediction of the 2012 romance genre, but those books have already been bought, mostly. Here’s what I would like to see:

More diversity, not just in the characters, but in the settings.
I’m iffy on wanting more steampunk. Too many people slap an iron bustle in a book and throw in a few mechanical devices and an airship and think that is a steampunk but a steam powered manufacturing creates an entirely different societal construction with political, class and gender differences. Successful steampunk books recognize this but I don’t see too much of it. I’d much rather see more fantasy romance ala Elizabeth Vaughn’s Warlord series or CJ Wilson.
Longer narrative books. I am very tired, particularly in erotic romance, of reading 15K, 25K, 40K word stories. I want in depth romance and sexy times with exploration of the internal machinations of the characters and not just insta lust followed by a dozen of club scenes. ENOUGH WITH THE CLUB SCENES.
Straight up contemporaries. I’ve been asking for this for a long time but I want to see more straight up contemporaries with no attendant mystery or suspense plot line. With Harlequin Superromances moving to 85,000 words, one might think my contemporary jones would be satisfied but there is a stunning lack of sexual tension in the HSR line except for a few authors. These are adults who are supposed to be attracted to each other, not siblings.
More courtship. I am not sure whether it is paranormals and the fated mates that have led to the slow devolution of the courtship, but whatever is the reason, we need to put a stop to it. I love the courtship. Dating is so rife with opportunity and conflict. Where is the slow build of attraction? One of the reasons I think Jenny Crusie’s books are so entertaining because many of the stories are about the courtship and I think you can still have plenty of sexy times and have courtship. See, e.g., Liberating Lacey by Anne Calhoun. I also think courtship, the drawn out tension, the will they or won’t they get together is one of the reasons adults read YA.
Creativity in worldbuilding. I think people are looking at steampunk because it is new and shiny and creative and it’s not just one lonely demon/angel/vampire/werewolf who searches for his mate so he can a) not go mad and b) settle down to knit booties in his spare time.
Less series books. I don’t mind if a couple shows up in a later book, kind of like an easter egg, but I am tired of every book out there being a series. I would like the occasional stand alone book now and again so that when I start to read an author I don’t have to read 9 books to get a sense of what book 10 is going to be about.
Fewer cliffhangers. This is more of a paranormal thing, but can’t anyone write a UF or PNR or YA Dystopian book without a friggin’ cliffhanger? Tell the story in one book, please. Just sometimes? Like 1/34 of the time. *cries*
Not everything has to be serious business. I know that humor is hard to write because everyone has their own definition of what is funny (I’m not a fan of slapstick or physical humor) but leavening a little emo agnsty tragedy with humor is a good thing.
More middle-class characters in the Victorian period. Not everyone needs to be a Lord or Lady. Landed gentry and wealthy merchants can still provide all the trappings of the historical such as the pretty dresses and the parties. I think that we are all tired of the ghastly Almack’s lemonade scenes.

And just because I want the above doesn’t mean I want to eliminate what people are doing well these days. I just want more variety, more choice. Why write the thing that everyone else and their cousin is writing? (I know, to sell, but still). What about the rest of you? What do you want to see in 2012 and beyond?

The Villain

Jane — Tue, 13 Dec 2011 10:00:21 +0000

There are four types of romances as it pertains to villains:

Romances with no villains.
The redeemable villain
The domestic villain
The international villain

The straight contemporary and the straight historical rarely have villains. The story is propelled primarily by the main characters and their romance.

Paranormals, Science Fiction romance, and urban fantasy books almost all have villains and usually another worldly creature who has lost touch with humanity. Humanity being usually being loosely defined as caring for someone other than oneself. In Patricia Briggs’s series, the villains are often power mad fae or vampires that have become too drunk on the acquisition of power.

Romantic suspense books feature either a sociopathic domestic villain or a sociopathic international villain. In Laura Griffin’s series, the villains range from rogue police officers to politicians to random sickos.

How we define villains are important because a villain has to be rendered sufficiently amoral in order to justify the vigilante fantasy, particularly if the book has a #3 or #4 villain.

Justification here is a) just wrong in the head or b) too greedy for power and without remorse for the lives of humankind. This latter line of thinking is often used to define villains.

If the villain is too dastardly, then it can’t be number 2. Drug dealers or those who traffic the sex trade are two types that seem to fall into number 3 or 4. (See e.g., Pamela Clare’s Breaking Point). Many people clamoured for a book featuring Louis Renard, the villain in All The Queen’s Men. I believe that the only reason that readers were drawn toward Renard was because all of his bad deeds were done in an effort to save his daughter. In Catherine Mann’s Cover Me, the villain claimed to be doing his evil deeds for the love of his wife. When the wife found out, she called BS on that arguing that she would never have wanted him to engage in his activities for the betterment of her life.

The international villain is popular for many authors who write about paramilitary organizations. Authors like Cindy Gerard mix it up between horrible drug lords in South America to dirty American politicians. (Note: politicians are another favorite villain) Lisa Marie Rice’s villains are almost uniformly of some other country, often radical Islamic people. I encountered another book recently that featured North Koreans as the villains. Very plausible, but concerning. If the sum total of Middle Eastern or Asian representation in romances are the villains, then the tendency toward homogenized characters becomes even more disturbing.

There was an author that wrote that racial balance can’t be obtained without it looking like a major Mary Sue Maneuver, particularly in historicals. I find this disturbing because if you can create a villain in historicals that is a particular racial caste then I’m not sure why it is so challenging to create a non villain in the same time period of the same racial caste.

Alas, I don’t want this post to be all about race and villains (although that is an important topic). What I’m really getting at is what makes an effective villain for readers. Villains, more so than any character, are often flat and uninspired, relying on stereotypes and shorthand to get the message across that this character really needs killing, as Hardy says in Blue Eyed Devil.

I think the problem with the nuanced villain is that the killing of that villain isn’t as righteous and the readers don’t really get to experience the satisfaction of a wrong corrected. Take for example, Jeannie Lin’s The Dragon and The Pearl. I felt deflated at the end when three people who had done wrong to the main protagonists walked away with nothing more than a stern talking to.
Jeannie Lin responded to this (not just my feelings but others) with a really thoughtful commentary on Western v. Eastern philosophies:

I’d like to concentrate my thoughts on two themes and one trope prevalent in the resolution of The Dragon and the Pearl. The themes are the preservation of harmony, or more specifically in this case social order, and the importance of family to promote harmony. Though these themes are not unique to Asian stories, I believe they are prevalent ones. The one trope is the unexpected master/mentor. The murderous villain with a heart.
…
There are different themes and values at play here. There is no good. There is no evil. There is harmony and disorder. I think this is easiest to see in the resolution of HERO. Jet Li, the hero, has spent the entire movie with the singular purpose of killing one man: a tyrannical warlord who has consumed kingdoms and cultures in bloodthirsty and ruthless wars before declaring himself emperor. But at the end, Jet Li realizes this man’s vision was to unite the empire and create an ideal of “Our Land” where there was none before. It would be a greater wrong to throw the empire into chaos and so Jet Li stands down and sacrifices himself.
Warlord Li Tao in The Dragon and the Pearl has similar values. His honor system is built around the preservation of order.

If the villain shows more, ah humane, tendencies such as undertaking the course of action to further the good of a child or someone less advantaged or perhaps upholding a certain way of life for the greater good, then the killing of that character is disturbing to the reader. However, one of the things that romances often lack is poignancy and nuance. In Kaylea Cross’ Deadly Descent, one of the characters is a Muslim intent on killing the hero. The motivation for this character’s actions is that he believes the hero killed his brother. Swept up in the anti-American talk, the character joins a local militia to move against the US soldiers. Yet, nothing that this character does is villainous. He is fighting for what he believes in against the foreign occupiers. He is avenging the loss of his brother. These are the traits and motivations that you often find in heroes in romances. I wasn’t sure if Cross intended a sympathetic portrayal but I read it as one and I was grateful.

Military heroes are often presented as believing themselves too villainous to love. The redemption story line is built around the concept that someone who did something bad in the past can be heroic today. In Tori St. Claire’s January 3d release, Stripped, the heroine is a CIA agent actually engaging in truly villainous activities for a greater cause. She sends girls into the sex trade, posing as a Russian mobster’s girlfriend. The goal is to find all the players in this sex trade to close it down. Engaging in these activities and regularly sleeping with the mobster (none of which is seen but rather alluded to at the beginning of the book), the heroine becomes so numb to feeling and so disgusted with herself she believes herself to be irredeemable. The author tries to convince the reader that she can and is redeemed, or at least worthy of redemption. She pulled it off for me but I know that the acts of the heroine in the first part of the book may render the character irredeemable for many others.

Ultimately it comes down to a reader’s point of view, but my argument is that a more nuanced villain can create emotional tension in a story that can leave a reader thoughtful but still satisfied. But perhaps the more nuanced villain is too close to the redeemed hero? What’s your thoughts?

REVIEW: The River Devil by Diane Whiteside

And This Heroine Is Just Right

Jane — Tue, 22 Nov 2011 10:00:33 +0000

Heroines in romance have great latitude. They can be rich and very poor. They can be successful and a failiure. They can be pretty, dumpy, funny, dour. They are not all extracted from the same hard body mold like the hero. The heroine’s own agency can provide a source of conflict for the romance. For instance, the wealth of the heroine can prevent the hero from believing he is good enough. A successful heroine can challenge the hero in the same way. If there is one large difference in male and female protagonists it would be that I think the males can be taken to the extremes whereas the females cannot.

The male characters can be extra large (and in the case of JR Ward’s books so large that there is not enough XXXXs to describe their clothing size); extra strong; extra tough; and extra mean. Those same descriptions can’t be applied to a female in romance. Instead, descriptions of heroines are often diminutive. How often do you read of a heroine’s small hands?

From Stephanie Laurens’ Viscount Breckinridge to the Rescue:

With a kiss so unadulteratedly passionate that she gasped, then, small hands clinging, grasping wildly, she rose to him again…

From Robyn Carr’s Whispering Rock:

She touched the scar on his right shoulder, then caressed his chest with her small soft hands.

From Jennifer Cruisie’s Santa Baby:

Eric barely heard her; his rational mind stopped functioning the moment her small hand landed on his arm. She was warm and soft and her scent — that of sweet innocence and spicy sexuality — drifted in to him.

The outsized or outrageous heroine is a rarity. She can be rich, but not too rich; successful but not too successful; strong but not too strong.

Are the limits those imposed naturally by the genre? In other words, one has to be stronger than the other and thus it should be the male. (Have we ever read a story in which the heroine was taller than the hero? In one of my favorite categories, A Lady’s Touch by Jayne Ann Krentz, the heroine is taller if she wears heels. Also interesting is that small hands is a term you won’t often find in a Jayne Ann Krentz novel).

If a heroine has agency, if she is not in need of a rescue, what can the hero provide? I think that there is some concern amongst readers and authors that if a heroine has agency, there can be no conflict. However, you’d be hard pressed to find a female character who has more agency than Eve Dallas. Roberts successfully pulls off the extraordinary: pairing a dominant female with a dominant male and still striking enough sparks to keep the series pulsing at 28 books and counting. Or perhaps consider Marcelline Noirot and Duke of Clevedon in Loretta Chase’s Silk is for Seduction. More recently, of course, is Meljean Brooks’ Heart of Steel with Yasmeen and Archimedes Fox. Probably one of my favorite scenes from the Heart of Steel is when Archimedes rushes in to save Yasmeen only to find that she’s already dispatched the enemy and Fox saying in frustration that he’d like to save her just once.

Some commenters in last week’s thread suggested that a female’s agency arises from her emotional power. A female with less personal agency can be the equal of the male protagonist by virtue of strong emotional power and through the exertion of emotional power, she exerts or influences change. Because she’s emotionally strong, she doesn’t overly challenge the masculinity of the hero or his “alpha” status. (My interpretation, not the commenters)

But part of the problem that we readers may have with women with agency, and not just emotional agency, may come down to two things: Supply and Demand.

Supply:

Successful authors enjoy writing about men more than women. I remember Suzanne Brockmann admitting that she liked her heroes more and it is clearly evidenced in her work. While J.R. Ward hasn’t made the same overt claim, her heroines are distinguished almost solely by the color of the dress that they were to cerimonial events whereas her heros are so fully realized that Ward herself pretends to be them in her message board forums. They are characters that continue beyond the literary space and into the virtual reality of readers (and perhaps the author). Ward is an avid devotee of Brockmann.

Readers don’t help in this matter. It was the practice of forum posters at the old Simon & Schuster message boards for Judith McNaught for posters to claim the heroes calling themselves Mrs. Clayton Westmoreland or Mrs. Ian Thornton.

Other authors, when patterning a successful series, may have looked at Brockmann and Ward and believed that romance readers respond to male dominated series. They do respond to male dominated series, of course, but one of the most successful authors in romance also writes female centric stories and that is Nora Roberts both in her NR incarnation and her J.D. Robb incarnation.

There is also the issue of heroines and agency in historicals. When we have a historical debate, two defenses regularly come up: 1) writer’s write about extraordinary events and people and 2) most women in historicals don’t have agency. Those two statements are diametrically opposed. If writers can write about extraordinary events and people then why aren’t historical women written with agency? If the great majority of women can be those out of the ordinary spitfires, blue stockings, those who hate shopping and would rather sit inside and read all the time, then why not women with agency? If there can be Charming Mickey Rourke how about Charming Minerva Rourke? There are extensive records indicating women were involved in the criminal underbelly in Victorian England.

Demand: My belief is that readers have embraced cross over fiction because those stories are generally more female centric and contains stories about women who have more agency. It is expected in urban fantasy, particularly first person urban fantasy, that the female protagonist be proactive, have power in her own right, and has the ability to exercise choice and influence her own outcomes. Thus readers may demand the more emotional heroine in straight romances while demanding/expecting something completely different outside the traditional romance sphere. When a female protagonist with more emotional agency in urban fantasy or a female protagonist with more physical or political agency than emotional agency in traditional romance is encountered by readers those stories fall flat because of missed expectations.

The truth is that the female role in romance is not so easily categorized as the male role. That allows for quite a bit of freedom but I wonder if we aren’t limiting ourselves as readers, requiring the females to fit into certain categories and within certain boundaries. Thoughts?

Monday Midday Links: USA Today Gets a Romance Blog and Amazon Exclusives Brings Out BN’s “Scorched Earth” Policy

Jane — Mon, 10 Oct 2011 17:00:04 +0000

USA Today launched a blog devoted to romances. Huzzah! Author Joyce Lamb, a copy editor for the paper and author of romantic suspenses published by Berkley, heads up the blog. Mandi S is one of the reviewers. Her blog is here. Other readers and authors will be contributing. It’s great to see positive coverage of the genre at one of the largest mainstream news sites in the US.

*****

Mitchell Gross writing under the name Michael Graham is an author of thrillers and a fantasy trilogy and he’s been using his status as an author to lure women online into a relationship and then convince them to invest in a fraudulent company.

Mitchell Gross, whose books include the suspense story “Circle of Lies,” duped at least two women into investing about $4.4 million in a sham company he set up, using some of the money to buy expensive artwork, a luxury car and a golf club membership, federal prosecutors said.

He was civilly sued by one of the women and she has a judgment against him in the sum of $4 million (including interest). Here and here. Thanks Amy and DS.

*****

Seattle Times had an interview with the VP of Kindle and he revealed a few interesting tidbits.

The Kindle Fire will mount as an external drive.
It does not support ePubs.
Seven hours of use for video playback and eight hours for mixed media usage.

******

This article which examines the cultural affect of the romanticization of the psychopathic hero is very even handed and worth a read. Yes, Edward is a psycopath. Yes, presenting him as a romantic ideal is problematic, but it is not new. Hello, Heathcliff. Yes, some people use these archetypes to escape, but no, not every woman is a dupe.

‘There appears to be a contemporary obsession on the part of some academics and commentators to a) pretend that women are cultural dupes passively accepting anything they ever read or see; and b) to pretend that any single controversial item-be it a Twilight novel or an explicit music video-is the only media influence that a person gets.

“Neither of these things are true.We’re each exposed to a deluge of different media influences and to pretend that any one item influences more strongly than another is ludicrous [as years of media research has proven].”

Read more: http://www.theage.com.au/entertainment/movies/mad-bad-romance-20111007-1ldoh.html#ixzz1aL4XQ6Ns

Of course, the problem isn’t a story in isolation, but the prominence of the representation in literature. Thanks, Sarah, for the link.

******

Inkubate is an online marketplace and manuscript review site currently in beta.

Inkubate is an online site currently in development that allows writers to upload content—full manuscripts, excerpts, out-of-print works and more—for review and possible acquisition by agents or publishers. The site is free to writers while publishers and agents pay a subscription fee for access to a database of content designed to provide copyright protection for the writer and an auditing system that tracks revisions, drafts and who has viewed its content.

This seems like a solution in search of a problem. Are publishers and agents hard up for submissions? Via Publishers Weekly.

******

DC Comics announced that it will make a certain number of digital comics exclusive to Amazon’s new Kindle Fire.

Initial offerings includes Watchmen, the acclaimed graphic novel by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons, which has more than a million copies in print; it has never been offered digitally before. The rest of the line-up includes such perennial favorites as The Sandman, Fables, Y the Last Man and Superman: Earth One. The digital Watchmen is available for pre-order now and sells for $9.99, half the print price. These 100 books represent only the initial roll-out; more titles will be announced as the Kindle Fire becomes available in November.

This prompted BN to pull all the paper versions from their stores:

They contacted DC to express their displeasure, but hit a brick wall. And as a result, they’ve gone for a scorched earth policy. An email sent to stores yesterday instructs them to remove all of the 100 graphic novels listed from the shelves, including Watchmen, The Dark Knight Returns, Sandman, Fables, Blackest Night, All Star Superman, Y The Last Man, V For Vendetta, all strong sellers for the company. You will still be able to order the books on the website, but in bookstores you won’t even be able to special order a copy – unless you request it delievered to your home. Copies will not be allowed to enter Barnes & Noble premises.

Expect more of this in the future.

Thursday Midday Links: Is Harlequin Trying to Move the Brand Away from Romance?

Jane — Thu, 09 Jun 2011 15:18:43 +0000

I was contacted last week about a program called “The Fresh Air Fund”. The program sets up host families for children in need. You can check out more at this link.

****

Jon L is the creator of a new blog which uses the Amazon API to try and create lists of new releases and pre-orders for various genres, one of which is romance. New blog is called newebook releases.blogspot.com. John is not a romance reader and has not done a lot of editing to his list, however, it appears to be a good resource.

Some of the links that may be of interest are:

Romance preorders, books available for preorder that will be released in June (as calculated at the end of May).
Romance books released up to June 1

Jon is fielding questions and comments about how to make this list more usable so please go over and give some input if you feel that this would be useful for you.

****

BookCountry, the self publishing and genre book community arm of Penguin, hosted an interview with Adam Wilson, a Harlequin Books Associate Editor.

DP: What are the trends in romance for HQN right now? What specifically have you been looking for in an acquisition so far in 2011?

AW: I kind of hate discussing “trends” because potential authors pick them up and run with them a little too literally. As you know, forecasting is always difficult when the typical lead-time to market is one year. However, MIRA has been expanding its trade program, especially by bringing in more commercial literary projects, so we definitely see that as a trend. In the YA world, dystopian is still going strong, and we’re pretty excited about what we see as a contemporary romance strain coming in there, too. Personally, I love seeing the trials of ‘normal’ kids, instead of 100% vampire-populated schools.

….

I’ve personally come to think of projects less in terms of “romance” than in terms of “women readers.” So, when I mention what I’m looking for, I’m thinking along those lines. Will there be a love story involved? 99% of the time, yes. But for me, romance can be such a loaded term that it really doesn’t say much about the rich texture of the various storytellers we publish.

Is Harlequin trying to move away from the romance label? I’ve wondered about that with the offerings from HQN and MIRA that seem less romance focused. I’m becoming a little leery of the books in those lines because I am unsure about what kind of resolutions will be included in the stories. It’s an interesting interview. Adam Wilson did a number of acquisitions for the Spice line which is definitely more erotica than erotic romance. I’ve actually stopped buying and reading Spice Briefs because they are too focused on erotica. What’s everyone else feeling on this?

***

The end of this month was to be the deadline by which apps which played or displayed content purchased outside of Apple’s ecosystem had to either start offering in app buying links or else. This policy affected reading apps because there was no way, under Agency pricing, that Amazon et al could continue to offer its apps and still make any kind of profit. Under Agency, these retailers only get 30% of the sale and for in app purchases, Apple would demand 30% of the sale. Fortunately, Apple has “blinked” as one headline suggests. The new guidelines state the following:

Apps can read or play approved content (specifically magazines, newspapers, books, audio, music, and video) that is subscribed to or purchased outside of the app, as long as there is no button or external link in the app to purchase the approved content. Apple will not receive any portion of the revenues for approved content that is subscribed to or purchased outside of the app.

I think that this is vague enough to allow Amazon to have a link that launches safari and loads a web page that tells readers that they can download a web app (this would be outside the apple store) to make their Kindle purchases.

The Rake

Jane — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 10:00:35 +0000

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There is not a more common hero archetype in historical romance than the “rake”. In my early days of reading, I always viewed the “rake” as a sign of virility of the hero. In romance novels, the women titter about the rake’s scandalous reputation while parading their young in front of him. The adage “rakes make the best husbands” is passed as truth. In this post, I am making the case that the rake isn’t a very heroic trait.

What does a rake really signify? There’s the saying “every man wanted to be him and every woman wanted to be with him.” To be a rake meant that you really made no effort to turn anyone down. A rake is a man with few scruples. He sleeps with widows, married women and often engages in dalliances with young unmarried women and certainly has sex with courtesans and maybe even whores of a lower class. A rake is really a man with little honor. By sleeping with married women, he engages in cheating. By seducing the young unmarried women, he places his desires in front of their reputation, the most important thing a young girl had. By dallying with servants, he takes advantage of someone who really can’t say no. How many books have we read about the beautiful governess who is hassled by her employer. The fact that a man is a rake doesn’t mean he is good in bed, it mainly means he’s indiscriminate. Yet, for some reason, being a rake is something virtually celebrated amongst romance books.

One of my least favorite Suzanne Enoch books (and she’s an author I like quite a bit) is Sin and Sensibility, published in 2005. The book opens with the hero getting a blowjob at a ball. He’s drinking whiskey while getting serviced, as if it isn’t anything more commonplace that sitting in the waiting room waiting for one’s oil to be changed. As he is drinking his whiskey and observing the crowd, he presses his hand to the back of the neck of the married woman fellating him. The coldness in this scene had a visceral impact on me. I literally, from the first page, began to hate the hero. Later, after he walks around the ballroom, he notes:

As he left, he glimpsed several young ladies following him with their eyes. It was something he was used to, and offering the chits a slight smile, he memorized the faces for future reference. One never knew when one might become bored with faro.

The heroine’s brothers are good friends with the hero. Why? I’m not sure. Why would you allow this person into the bosom of your family? At least Deverill, the hero in Sin and Sensibility, displays his rake-like nature for the readers. Oftentimes, the rake never acts on his rakish past during the pages of the book. He’s just given the “rake” trait as others talk about him. In other words, the readers are told that he is a rake but we aren’t shown he is a rake. Because a rake’s actions aren’t very heroic.

I can’t remember when I started turning against the rake, began to see this usage as something dishonorable rather than attractive, a trait from which the hero must be redeemed. In One Forbidden Evening, Cybelline seeks out Ferris because he has the reputation for being a rake. She wants anonymous sex with someone who won’t ask questions, who didn’t care to know her identity, who wouldn’t have any real moral qualms about the setup of having sex with a woman at a masquerade when she doesn’t even want to take her mask off. Ferris wants to be offended by this but he knows he’s at fault for building up the rake reputation because it provided a decent camouflage.

Carolyn Jewel has two books wherein the hero’s “rake” behavior actually works against him. In Lord Ruin, the hero is found in bed with the heroine and even if the brother would like to prevent the marriage, the hero’s reputation is so scandalous that if the heroine doesn’t marry him, the hero will be ruined. In Scandal, the hero’s penchant for whoring and cheating prevents him from having the one woman he really wants. The entire book is given over to him changing his ways, trying to become more responsible, convincing the heroine that he is worth the chance.

Many readers dislike Sebastian in To Have and To Hold by Patricia Gaffney because he acts despicable. He basically rapes Rachel. He says that she can either sleep with him or go to the gallows. He hands her over as a sexual gift to one of his dissolute acquaintances. He is, in short, a villain. The story is of his redemption; his climb from the very depths of execrable character to become a person worthy of Rachel’s love. Sebastian is a true rake, someone so dissolute that buying a woman from the gallows to serve his sexual needs is nothing.

I think the “rake” is one of the examples of shorthand in the romance genre where authors use it to make the hero exciting, dangerous, and virile. It’s something an author tells us but what does the author show us about a rake hero? How is being a “rake” a good thing? and if it isn’t a good thing, then shouldn’t the fact the the hero is a rake something he should overcome/come to terms with?

Do you like the rake hero? What does it mean to you? Do you think my interpretation of the rake is wrong? or too extreme?

Readers Opinions Wanted: Unfamiliar Terms

Jane — Sat, 26 Sep 2009 20:19:16 +0000

In today’s First Page, Laura Kinsale brought up a question in the comments regarding unfamiliar terms in a story.

I have a question, as a writer, about one of the comments. This isn’t a loaded question, or any sort of commentary on this excerpt itself, it’s input for me.

DS said

I had to look up "drafts on collection" to find out what he entrusted with,

As a reader-and I think I mean a romance reader here, vs say an SF/fantasy reader where world-building is more common in the genre-when you come across a term you don’t understand, do you tend to feel uncomfortable until you look it up? Are you willing to trust the author to define it for you in context?

I tend to do the latter as a writer, try to define the term in context without spelling it out in a dictionary sort of way. But having lost my ability to read as a non-writer many moons ago, I was intrigued by DS’s comment.

Which would you prefer, for an unfamiliar technical term like "drafts on collection?"

To try to figure out the meaning from the context? To stop and look it up? To avoid the term entirely? For the author to describe it in more detail, even if that is info-dump? To just go on, not being quite sure?

I’m sure there are many different attitudes about this but I’d like to hear some of them.

For me, I prefer the term defined by the author within the story. When a foreign language is used, I like it translated for me. In a paranormal/fantasy/science fiction romance, I want the author to explain the new terms within the text. I don’t mind looking up singular words that are new to me in the dictionary. I will say that anything that takes me out of the story likely means I will be putting down the book and that may mean I will get distracted by any number of things. What about you readers out there? How do you feel?

Memorable Romance Book Moments

Jane — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 10:00:48 +0000

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There are passages in books that are so memorable that you need only say a few descriptive words and the reader knows exactly what book you are talking about. These are scenes that I don’t think could be duplicated by the same author or even other authors without invoking the original.

Here are a few that I can remember.

She warms his feet.
She shoots him.
He drugs her with beetle dust. Twice. And she is stuffed into a trunk.
The dock, Julie Ann, and the bear.
She steals his horse and accidentally kills it.

What I think makes these scenes iconic is how intricately they are tied into the storyline. In the first instance, the heroine’s selfless behavior makes her captor rethink his preconcieved viewpoint. In the third instance, the drugging of the heroine is done twice, first by the hero’s servants and then by the hero himself later in the book which was evidence of his crazy addiction to to the heroine.

In the “bear” story, the hero tells the heroine a love story involving a woman named Julie Ann and throughout the story, refers to her as “Julie Ann” from time to time, referencing that important scene. The “horse” book uses the loss of the horse as a catalyst to bring the hero and heroine closer together. The shooting scene referenced in the second example is a peak point in the relationship between the hero and heroine, a kind of point of no return.

Too often you find books filled with scenes that are fillers or bridges from one scene to another. One thing that I found so impressive about Meredith Duran’s Bound by Your Touch is how each scene played an important part in the overall construction of either the plot or the characterization. It was not simply there to provide entertaining dross about the characters.

I was reading a novel the other day and the characters were traveling from a party to the hotel where they would have sex for the very first time. The two characters exchange a bit of banter, but overall the scene had absolutely nothing of value other than to get us from Point A to Point B. I thought at least it could be used to heighten the sexual tension between the couple if the scene had to be included, but alas, it was like hearing the painful beginning of a blind date.

Robin has a great article planned for next week about book length and how the length of the book isn’t as important as what is included in the book.

I think, too, that these memorable scenes lacked kitschiness. One of the things that I really am starting to despise more and more is gimmicky setups for stories whether it be the four governesses from the governess finishing school to the fantasy island partnerswapping adventure story.

Memorable scenes can be contrived. I’ll never forget Nicholas by Elizabeth Amber with the hero and his sentient snake like appendage (which is not the same as his two dicks). And “time traveling urinal” rings many a bell for a reader. Scene stickiness can be based on how horrific you make something for a reader. The snake scene from A Maiden’s Grave by Jeffrey Deaver and the chainsaw/rat scene in American Psycho by Brett Eason Ellis are two that are burned in my memory, much to my dismay.

It’s not possible, given the scope of books being published today, for memorable scenes to exist in each and every book, but certainly that has to be the aim of the author – to make one’s book memorable, even 20 years beyond its original publication? When I go back and read those favorite, memorable scenes, I’m often immediately sucked into the story

I know there are other noteworthy scenes I haven’t mentioned because I simply can’t recall them as I sit here today. Authors Shannon Stacey and Jaci Burton shared with me one of the most memorable scenes in a romance book. It is a shower scene in the Harlequin Blaze, The Sweetest Taboo by Alison Kent. It made an impression on those two and fulfills my criteria for a memorable scene in that it impacts the story arc:

He just compromised the entire reason he’d had this shower built. Solitude, personal safety, peace of mind. He’d never step inside again without thinking of Erin in his arms.

And he wasn’t at all sure he was comfortable with that.

What are some scenes in books that have stuck in your mind? Are all the scenes from books you loved? What makes a memorable scene for you?

***
The key:

Honor’s Splendor by Julie Garwood
Lord of Scoundrels by Loretta Chase
Secret Fire by Johanna Lindsey (this is one of my all time favorite romances. ALL TIME)
Welcome to Temptation by Jennifer Crusie
Kingdom of Dreams by Judith McNaught

Genre Fatigue Poll

Jane — Mon, 13 Oct 2008 03:01:25 +0000

Note: There is a poll embedded within this post, please visit the site to participate in this post's poll.

I’m feeling the paranormal/fantasy fatigue. What are you feeling?

Let’s Talk About Sex (and Love and then Sex Again)

Jane — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 09:00:42 +0000

more cat pictures

I just watched the first episode of Bones which I downloaded from iTunes. I’d been thinking about watching it for some time and was holed up in the basement working on a project and thought that running the show while I was working would be a great way to pass some time. Before I downloaded it, I googled the show and saw that David Boreantz said that what made the show were its relationships

"For me, I’ve always maintained that the show was the [Booth-Bones] relationship, maintained that the show was about the characters and I maintained that the show is about the two of us learning through the crimes and that journey that we take," he said. "That, to me, is the most important part."

After watching the first episode, I agree. The characterization of Bones was forced in places (the ‘I don’t know what that means’ meme got a bit tiresome). The mystery was resolved in about two seconds. I couldn’t decide if I liked the eccentricities of the secondary characters or whether their quirkiness fell under “trying to hard.” But the dynamic between Bones, the scientist who dealt with hard facts, and Boothe, the cop who deals with the soft ones, is very engaging.

There isn’t a TV show that doesn’t revolve around some romantic entanglement and there are few books that don’t have an undercurrent of sexual tension between the lead and someone else. Heck, even the eternal hound dog Lucas Davenport got married at some point in the long running “Prey” series. So why are romance novels, which are all about relationships, deemed to be culturally bereft?

I asked Ilona Andrews, a UF crossover author, who has read gobs of romance in the last couple of years what she thought of the genre. She said “Romance makes you a better writer. Romance is all about emotion. Readers are emotion junkies.”

But most people think that Romance is all about sex. Consider the MSNBC poll which a number of bloggers and authors discussed with much deserved disdain. The choices you were given include:

Yes, yes, yes! Bodice-rippers are my ultimate escape
No way. I don’t touch those books.
Sometimes, while on vacation or at the beach.

Sadly, though, even romance novels aren’t considered to be good enough for a beach read. Beach reads, as identified by some bestselling authors, include The Great Gatsby, Nancy Drew and The Stand. (Thanks for the links Jill F). Maybe they should have asked SB Sarah about her choices like Tango did.

Lynn Kerstan wrote about the fear of the sex based book for women.

All they know are the cliches. The Myths of the Seventies and Eighties have become ingrained in their saucer-deep minds. Romance novels are all about a silly female and her clothes, her advancement in society, her search for a handsome, wealthy tycoon or sheik or pirate to fulfill her fantasies, and sex.

Mostly about sex. That’s what really interests the journalists and the uninformed public. Especially in America, which is simultaneously hung up about sex and obsessed with it. Sex is forbidden, irresistible territory.

I think Kerstan is right. In the past couple of weeks, there was a huge storm that arose over a picture of pink high heels that a young woman wore to welcome her soldier home from Iraq. Apparently there were some who found the picture of the shoes cheap and trashy and wished that the paper had picked a different picture. As SB Sarah noted, ” I’m struck by two things: one, the seeming desire to asexualize a homecoming.”

Again, the idea that the woman was some sexual being was offensive to some. Are we going to be forced back into corsets and coverings from head to toe? I do not understand the fear behind women claiming their sexuality. I would think that men would want women to be more sexual. What is seriously so terrifying about a woman is sexually empowered? Although I’m not sure whether romance reading women are more sexually in tune than another woman – obviously that’s a perception and I have no idea whether it is actually backed up by empirical evidence.

Even among romance readers, the highly sexualized character is not universally favored. The reviews of Your Scandalous Ways by Loretta Chase, a book that is recommended by nearly every reviewer here at Dear Author, have, as Candy has succinctly summarized included this criticism: OH MY GOD THE HEROINE IS A WHORE YOU GUYS THIS IS TOTALLY GROSS.

“I agree with some of the other reviewers who got sick of hearing the heroine call herself a w…… I will not read Chase again, or at least, I will not purchase another one of her books.” LINK

I do not like a book where the main character proudly admits she is a “wh____e”. At that point I stopped reading the book. LINK

i started skipping pages after about 80pgs. who wants to hear a woman say constantly “I AM A WH…? yes she was treated badly, so move on, and find a way to use the letters constructively. everybody has their opinion, but with morals so lax today who wants to read about a courtesan who admits that she is a WH… and proud of it, even if some is for show. LINK

A sexualized female is dangerous to both women and men in large enough numbers that it is still acceptable to insult the millions of women who read romance by reducing their chosen hobby to a couple of sexually degrading terms (‘bodice-rippers’). As Ms. Kerstan said, “The ingrained bigotry chafes my hide.”

What is it going to take for romance to be considered on the same cultural level as say a trite but engaging television show like Bones?

Mainstream Media Embarasses Itself

Jane — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 22:50:35 +0000

MSNBC decided to run a poll about romance novels in conjunction with its feature of fiction writer Danielle Steele. Why MSNBC jumps from Danielle Steele to romance, I’ll never know but it just goes to show how culturally illiterate the MSNBC poll writers are.

Apparently MSNBC believes that romance books are still called “bodice rippers.” Hello, MSNBC, the 80s called and they want George Michael and your poll writers back. See, bodice rippers don’t identify romance books anymore. It’s man titty. Can you get that right? Let’s have culturally relevant insults. It works better, you look smarter and it makes it harder for us to make fun of you.

And perhaps you haven’t heard yet, but millions of women spend nearly a billion dollars on romance books each year which means you are pissing off a huge segment of your viewership. Rock on with your bad, deluded, out of touch selves.

Links to other bloggers who think you are as stupid as I do:

Smart Bitches (with new poll)
Barbara Vey’s blog with an alternate list of poll answers

Does the romance genre need to be more expansive?

Jane — Tue, 18 Sep 2007 09:00:59 +0000

Some readers have argued in the comments at Smart Bitches that the romance genre definition does not include a happy ever after. I had a long and somewhat contentious debate with Robin over the definition of romance. Her argument is that the academic definition of the genre is that romance is a story that focuses on the love relationship of individuals and results in an uplifting ending for the characters involved in the love relationship.

My definition? A book that contains a love story and ends with the promise of happily ever after.

Robin’s argument is that if the more widely accepted definition was not one that included a HEA, that the ending of books would be more satisfying.

My argument is that authors need not limit themselves by the genre definition as expressed by the readers. Meaning, that if an author is crafting her books to be most reader friendly (depending on whom the reader is), then that is her issue and not one reliant on the genre definition. I read JR Ward’s recent book, “Lover Unbound”, as an answer to her fans, at least a certain segment of her fans. To some fans (me) the book read as a sell out. To others, they will appreciate the changes she made. The ending was unsatisfactory to me, but not because of the genre constraints but because the way in which Ward created the conflict and then resolved it was a) not within the canon of the world she had created before and b) reeked of authorial manipulation. (There were many other problems with the book but the ending is germane to the piece).

I’ve never really understood the concept that an author is confined or limited by the genre. I mean, if you don’t want to end your book with an HEA, why not write the book without one if that fits better for the story. It seems on the one hand, authors are gods. They control the characters, the stories, the endings. On the other, they are constrained by the genre? It doesn’t fit for me. You are either a god over your book or you are not.

Just because a book ends with a “tacked on” happy ever after doesn’t mean that the genre is to blame or the need for an HEA is to blame. It just means the author didn’t deliver. Just because an erotic romance contains a bunch of bad sex scenes doesn’t make the entire sub genre of erotic romance invalid. A poorly written book within a genre does not invalidate the genre itself.

Here is why I like the promise of the HEA. I am willing to give myself over completely to author in a romance. She can take me anywhere because I know, in the end, for all the suffering, pain, separation, unhappiness, that these people will end up together. It makes it all worth it. Now, not every book ends well. Not every romance delivers but the reason I read more romances than any other genre? Because I feel safe in the certainty of the book’s ending. It’s not because life is tough because it is. It’s not because I like to read about the leisure class or lords and ladies or vampires and werewolves. It’s because these journeys that I am on always end the same way – together and happy. For romances, I don’t need to read the back of the book. They all (should) end the same.

I am curious to how others define the HEA; whether it is restricting authors from writing true to their authorial vision; whether the HEA constraint adversely influences the ending (i.e., books end with HEAs that are forced rather than natural); whether a more expansive genre definition would increase the quality of romances; and finally, if you read romances and want the HEA, why?

Help Me!

Jane — Wed, 18 Oct 2006 17:00:00 +0000

I have been challenged by a male online reader who has been questioning of the romance genre to find the following:

Does there exist such a thing as a mystery or suspense romance that doesn’t have a lot of sensual sexual physical or erotic stuff going on?

Help me make a convert here. First, give me your favorite mystery/romantic suspense and then give me your best recommendation of one that doesn’t have alot of sex. Make sure that it is a romance, not a cross over (like Iris Johansen).