I teach an undergraduate seminar on “Gender, Sexuality, and Popular Culture” with a unit on the romance genre. This year, for the first time ever, the class consists entirely of women. Also new this year is an exercise we invented of an online, collaborative romance narrative. One question that came up in our writing experiment was how, when, and why [...]
Filed under Talking About Romance · Tagged with aggression, Catherine Roach, celibacy, divorce, Eric Selinger, erotica, Erotica vs. Pornography, etymology, exploitation, feminism, Gloria Steinem, HEA, linguistics, love, New Approaches to Popular Romance Fiction, patriarchy, pleasure, pornography, power dynamics, power play, prostitution, redefinition, Sarah S. G. Frantz, Sarah Wendell, sex, sexuality, shaming, violence, widows, writing, You Call Me a Bitch Like That's a Bad Thing
According to Sherry Thomas, all genre fiction offers a promise of justice and fairness that may not be visible in readers’ daily lives. She says, “[. . . ] when I write a romance I want to explore basically certain themes of trust and reconciliation [. . . ],” and one way to combine fairness with stories that push and [...]
Filed under Interviews · Tagged with fairness, genre fiction, HEA, Hong Kong, intelligence, justice, karma, kindness, sacrifice, Sherry Thomas, Taiwan, time, women
Readers of inspirational romance want both a compelling, wholesome love story and an uplifting Christian faith element. A good inspirational romance supplies both of these, and more. Many contemporary readers find it challenging to live an authentic Christian life in today’s world, to act with integrity in an impure culture and to keep their faith, hope, and love alive in [...]
Filed under Behind the Scenes · Tagged with A Father's Place, adoption, Amish romance, bodyguards, characters, Christianity, churches, community, convicts, cowboys, Delaware, editors, Ellie Wayne, embezzlers, Emma Miller, faith, family, fathers, forgiveness, Golden Rule, Harlequin, HEA, historical romance, idealism, inspirational romance, Joan Marlow Golan, Johanna's Bridegroom, Linda Ford, Love Inspired, Marta Perry, materialism, morality, murder suspects, orphans, parents, positive, profanity, prostitutes, prostitution, readers, redemption, relationships, self-improvement, sex, simplification, sin, spirituality, Terri Reed, The Cowboy Target, The Cowboy's Unexpected Family, transformation, voice, weddings, widows, Wyoming
Why does romance require a “happily ever after”? Has it always? What is the relationship between the romantic and the romance? William Gleason, professor of English at Princeton University, shares his thoughts: What, for you, makes an ending a happy ending—is the couple’s togetherness enough? Can the couple be separated geographically, yet emotionally together? Can you think of endings meant [...]
Filed under Interviews · Tagged with 1800s, Bet Me, dime novels, Gone with the Wind, HEA, HFN, Jennifer Crusie, Margaret Mitchell, marriage, Rhett Butler, Romance Writers of America, Scarlett O'Hara, story papers, tragic love, Victorian, William Gleason
The market popularity of the Fifty Shades trilogy is undeniable. Starting life as Twilight fan fiction and published as original fiction after some slight alterations, the trilogy has by turns delighted, scandalised, and drawn derision from its readers. What is less clear, though, is what genre the Fifty Shades trilogy occupies. With its emphasis on monogamy, love, and the idea [...]
Filed under Talking About Romance · Tagged with 1800s, Anastasia Steele, BDSM, Bella Swan, billionaires, category romance, Christian Grey, Edward Cullen, erotica, fan fiction, Fifty Shades Darker, Fifty Shades of Gray, genre, Harlequin, Harlequin Presents, HEA, healing, Jodi McAlister, liminality, monogamy, narrative structure, New Moon, Pamela Regis, point of ritual death, pornography, pregnancy, serialization, shyness, Steven Marcus, The Other Victorians, The Oyster, The Pearl, trilogies, Twilight, virginity
As a child, I used to spend a lot of time with my grandmother, an Olympic-level people-watcher. While she and I shared our observations, my primary contribution to our people watching conversations was to ask, “Why are those people doing that?” As an adult, I am still fascinated by the “Why?” behind people’s actions, including, as it turns out, the [...]
Filed under Talking About Romance · Tagged with behavior, child abuse, Chryssa D. Sharp, communication, criminals, detectives, emotion, Eve Dallas, Harry Ingham, HEA, honesty, Immortal in Death, In Death, interpersonal dynamics, J.D. Robb, Johari Window, Joseph Luft, motives, murder suspects, Naked in Death, Nora Roberts, organizational behavior, psychology, Roarke, romance after marriage, romantic suspense, self-awareness, sexual abuse, sociology, tycoons
The first rule of romance is that the heroine always wins. The heroine’s happily-ever-after is a hallmark of the genre, and no matter which time period or sub-genre of romance, our readers come to our novels in the faithful expectation of the heroine’s eventual triumph. Yet, throughout history, such an empowered outcome was sadly rarely the case—women have most often [...]
Filed under Behind the Scenes · Tagged with A Tale of Two Cities, Admiral Sir Charles Middleton, alternative histories, art, British Royal Navy, captains, Charles Dickens, craft, Elizabeth Essex, Elizabeth Vigée-Lebrun, French Revolution, Georgian, HEA, historical romance, Joanna Bourne, learning history, maritime history, Mary Wollstonecraft, music, Napoleon, Napoleonic Era, Naval Chronicle, Regency, Revolutionary, RITA, The Black Hawk, the everyday, Trafalgar, Vindication of the Rights of Women, women's history, worldbuilding
As a long-time romance reader, a romance author, and a publisher, I figured I had a pretty good handle on what constituted a good romance, so when I was asked to be the guest editor of Best Lesbian Romance 2009 (Cleis Press), I expected the task to be straightforward. I’ve just recently turned in the manuscript for Best Lesbian Romance [...]
Filed under Talking About Romance · Tagged with attraction, Best Lesbian Romance, Bold Stroke Books, catharsis, challenges, cheating, Cleis Press, conflict, connection, consummation, declaration, editing, expectations, first love, GLBT, HEA, HFN, lesbian romance, longtime couple, lying, marriage, meeting, paranormal romance, pleasure, Radclyffe, rape, readability, reader acceptance, resolution, reunion, rules, sexuality, social history, subgenres, transformation, Trust, urban fantasy, women's history, YA
As of today, the Popular Romance Project has attracted visitors from at least 66 different countries and territories, suggesting that romantic novels are of near global interest. Our stats raise countless questions. For example, given that the HEA (or HFN) is crucial to the definition of romance genre fiction, have our top countries (the U.S.A., Canada, the U.K., Australia, and [...]
Filed under Behind the Scenes · Tagged with Adoras collection, Africa, Austrailia, Belgium, Brian Larkin, Canada, comics, community, film, French, HEA, HFN, India, Japan, Lydia Moudileno, manga, men, Middle East, Mills and Boon, Nigeria, Reuters, soap operas, soyayya, Turkey, U.K., U.S.A.
Romance author Sherry Thomas aims to end her historical romances with “excellent new beginnings” rather than “happily ever afters.” Find out why. She talked with us about what makes a romance novel satisfying, and she described the types of heroes and heroines she likes to write. Sherry Thomas came to the U.S. from China at the age of 13. It [...]
Filed under Interviews · Tagged with arrogance, China, clinch, clinch covers, competence, conclusions, confidence, cover art, covers, culture shock, English as a Second Language, HEA, heroes, heroines, historical romance, intelligence, journey, languages, PDA, reconciliation, reparation, RITA, self-worth, Sherry Thomas
