Let me tell, I much prefer the Disneyfied versions of Sleeping Beauty and The Little Mermaid to the originals.

You and me both. I haven’t seen Sleeping Beauty’s original story, but I watched the original of The Little Mermaid and was completely horrified.

That, I can agree with. A lot of those covers are just plain hokey. It’s as if romance publishers want to give the impression nothing has changed since the ’70s. But a book that looks stuck in the bad old days doesn’t inspire confidence that its themes or writing will be up to date.

I think the whole question of expanding the genre gets confounded by these issues of perception. Romance is pretty expansive already, but we see over and over that people don’t think they read romance because they don’t read Harlequins or books with clinch covers.

“Don’t judge a book by its cover” just isn’t realistic. That’s what the cover’s for. I read romance; I know that great books can have terrible covers… but still, the cover influences me. Why would someone who isn’t already a romance fan pick up a book whose cover shrieks “Dated”? I’m often turned off sci fi by covers that give me that kind of reaction.

Are you sure? I’ve read a few of the popular YA lines and grew up on Dawson’s Creek and my peers and I throve on the drama and hijinks of romance and (possibly back-stabbing) friendships. Now that we’ve moved on to Grey’s Anatomy, it’s basically the melodrama of teen soaps all over again. It isn’t the HEA, it’s the images of Fabio and pirates and heaving bosoms and sexually-deprived, ignorant housewives (as a few FFF fans listed) that have stuck with us all over the past fifteen to twenty years. Just Tuesday or so on The View Sherri Shepard shared that when she wants to relax, she grabs the “trashiest romance novel” she can find. Even when Kelly Ripa had her book club it wasn’t taken seriously by what it seems was neither herself (everything was very frothy and pink!) or anyone else because she was recommending romance novels.

Trust me…it ain’t the happily-ever-after that keeps the younger readers away.

I attended school on both coasts and none of the people I know IRL and online read romance novels at all. They see them as for people of their mothers generation.

That’s what I mean. I think that perception that romances are for an older generation may come from the fact that so many books have a very strict definition of romantic happiness, love and commitment.

I like the fact that the basic precept of this genre is striving towards a committed, loving relationship.

Oh, I do too, very much so! I wouldn’t be reading so many romances if I didn’t. I just don’t think that going from the resolution of the book’s conflict to marriage immediately is the only way to arrive at a committed and loving relationship.

I bet some did but wouldn’t admit to it. That’s what I’ve found among my friends. After knowing one friend for 10 years, she tentatively mentioned a best-selling romantic suspense, then finally got brave and admitted to being a longtime romance junkie. After she “came out”, so did others.

Yes, TH&TH was my first Gaffney. I enjoyed it. I haven’t decided whether I’ll review it. Others have written interesting reviews of it already, but if I decide I have something to say, I will. Obviously I was impressed by the characters. I’m still thinking over the huge change in the middle of the book, from taunting and long-suffering to flowers and puppies and perfumes and crazy climactic court scene.

I wasn’t as keen on To Love and to Cherish, so I haven’t read the 3rd Wyckerley book. But if I review TH&TH I’m sure I’ll read Forever and Ever.

Do you mean if they read romances? I attended school on both coasts and none of the people I know IRL and online read romance novels at all. They see them as for people of their mothers generation. Granted I’m basing my opinions on my own circle of friends and acquaintances, but when I do dally around the romance aisle in bookstores for a period of time, I rarely see people my age browsing and purchasing romance novels. When I look at author websites, I rarely see writers who share my background, and the ones that do are usually writing paranormals/urban fantasy.

Like I said, I don’t mind the marriage-obsessiveness of romance novels because I didn’t come from a family where I saw marriage and I grew up in an atmosphere where marriage was not even thought about as something to desire. So even when I dislike certain tropes or find myself unable to understand why certain things exist in the genre and don’t feel that a man or woman is defined by their status as a husband or wife, I like the fact that the basic precept of this genre is striving towards a committed, loving relationship.

This is a fascinating discussion, particularly to an outsider who had no notion that HEA is literally a prerequisite for a romance. I balk at the notion of prescription – BUT it is undeniable that when I pick up a romance, I am expecting an HEA and the injection of ‘feelgood’ associated with it. When that HEA is cheap, however, or unconvincing or saccharine I’m left peeved and dissatisfied (increasingly often, nowadays). Maybe the genre needs a kick.

One of my favourite romances – Black Lace, Judith Ivory – had characters to finely drawn, so complicated and flawed and intransigent I reached a point towards the end of the novel where I wondered if there would be a HEA afterall. And the thing is, I wouldn’t have minded either way. In fact, there was something almost unnatural about the actual HEA… Like I said, it’s one of my favourite romances, but almost despite the HEA.

I think the happy-ending should be whatever fits the story. It’s fine if the hero and heroine wait to get married. I’m actually a big fan of the happily-for-now ending because in some situations “I love you; let’s get married tomorrow” doesn’t suit the circumstances. Moving in is fine. Engaged is fine. Married is fine. As long as the ending is happy, I’m not picky.

And maybe autobiographies would be more interesting if they didn’t stick to describing the events in a person’s life. Surely a made-up story or two would allow for more interesting autobiographies.

Jane–To me, what defines a romance is that the main plot is a love story. Period. . . .

But are they romances? I’d have to say “Hell yes!”

And that’s where we differ. I’d say the stories you mention have romantic elements, but I wouldn’t call them romances.

According to the RWA’s 2005 statistics:

50% of romance readers are married
37 % of romance readers are single
8% of romance readers are widowed
4% of romance readers are divorced
1% of romance readers are separated

It doesn’t bother me because a) the general goal in a romance novel is marriage. Heroes shy from it and heroines obsess over it (especially if they’re over 30)

I think the general goal in a romance novel is lasting love and happy togetherness. For me marriage doesn’t necessarily equal those things; it can easily end in divorce or just in two people who are trapped in unhappy situation for the sake of the children.

I also, like RfP, am bothered by the marriage-obsessed heroines. I don’t think marriage for the sake of being married is always such a good idea, and while in historical times women may not have had better avenues for supporting themselves, in contemporary times, these attitudes don’t ring true to me.

Most of my female friends are not obsessed with marriage. Some of my friends are single, some are in relationships but not married or not yet married, some are married and childless by choice, some are married with kids. In those cases where they are married, it is just as often the husband who pushed for marriage as the wife (or who pushed for children, when the wife wasn’t sure she wanted them).

& b) the average romance writer and reader appears to be a married woman with parents who married, etc.

Well of course most readers have married parents. Everyone has parents, and people who have kids usually do marry. But I’m more skeptical of your statement that most romance readers are married themselves. Do you have stats to back that up? Even if true, I bet that many of those readers have at one time or another lived together with a lover (sometimes the very husband they are now married to). How many heroines (or even heroes) do you see in romances who lived together with a lover at some time in the past, or who decide to live together at the end of the book, before marrying?

Most of the people I know, in my generation, who are living with their significant others and are having children with them didn’t come from “traditional” backgrounds–not only marriage-wise, but from a socio-economic level.

Maybe I wasn’t as clear as I could have been. I’m not advocating kids out of wedlock as the HFN I want! I think it is better to marry if you are going to have children. But what about those people who live together for a year or two and then get married? What about those people who don’t want children and who decide to live together without marriage? What about those who marry but are infertile and decide to adopt? What about those who marry but remain childless by choice?

Are marriage and children the only things that make a romantic relationship happy? Don’t the people I described deserve love too? Can’t their lives also be romantic? Aren’t there stories that can be told about them, too?

I honestly believe that many, many people today move in together before getting engaged. And I also think that it’s possible that if romance doesn’t reflect contemporary values more often, it’s not going to attract the next generation of readers. There are many ways of being romantic. I’m not suggesting that the traditional HEA be eliminated, just that we see more diversity in our happy endings.

Being a 20-something today (the average age of a romance h/h) is a completely different thing than being 20-something in the 90s or even the 80s, and to be honest, since I don’t feel contemporary romances are targeted to todays 20-somethings, I don’t mind the “time warp”.

But can you say the same for your fellow 20-somethings?

I remember when I first read Kathleen Gilles Seidel’s Again, how pleased I was that the heroine was living with her lover (not the hero). It was so refreshing to see that in a romance. That’s the kind of thing I want more of.

Janine, it bothers me too, and it’s part of why I say the form of the happy ending (marriage, kids, etc) often seems more about social norming than about finding the right resolution for that couple.

I think it is, and at some level is supposed to be, in part because of the historical relationship of the Romance novel to Comedy, to the domestic novel, to sentimental fiction, etc. It’s the marriage as social stabilizer thing, although I think there’s some tension between that notion and the idea of True Love, which seems more to belong to the current model of Romance, such that marriage has become one of those Romance codes for HEA, when, at least for me, marriage doesn’t automatically read HEA for me, but more social cohesion. I don’t want to start a long debate about how whether marriage equals HEA, but that’s part of why I think that genre Romance has a certain transitional quality around the endings that has yet to be resolved.

Janine, it bothers me too, and it’s part of why I say the form of the happy ending (marriage, kids, etc) often seems more about social norming than about finding the right resolution for that couple.

It doesn’t bother me because… the general goal in a romance novel is marriage. Heroes shy from it and heroines obsess over it (especially if they’re over 30)

The obsession with marriage turns me off in a big way. It seems like such a yearning for the 1950s (or an idealized ’50s), and often it’s an excuse for her to be selfish or do stupid things that just happen to keep the plot moving. Hmm, did I just say a marriage-obsessed heroine = a TSTL heroine? It ain’t necessarily so, but sometimes they’re written similarly.

It’s also a dynamic that I don’t understand. In my and my friends’ experience, it’s been men who want to settle down too fast, while we women have been the ones saying “Yikes, slow down, what’s the rush, maybe in a few years.”