Romance, ever again

Some critics argue that romance novels teach young girls impossible ideas about love. And while I’ll admit that my nine-year-old daughter will not marry a Viking or a medieval warrior, there are other, more important messages that I hope she’ll gain from reading romances. First, that men who treat women badly are not heroes—they’re the villains. Second, although the path to love may be rocky, real love does exist, and sometimes it’s not with the person you expect. Last, my favorite books taught me to wait for the right man and to hold high standards. I’ve been married to my own romance hero for nearly fifteen years now, and he continues to surprise me by sending romantic text messages or by getting me flowers for no reason at all. I hope that one day my daughter will find her own happy ending with the perfect hero.

Michelle Willingham

I’m a public librarian by training, so I’m no stranger to stereotypes. I know you’ve heard them, too. Librarians are all shy, repressed, buttoned-up. We all wear buns, cardigans, and pointy glasses, and we all live alone with our pampered cats. Our favorite word is Shush. And so on.

But the stereotypes about romance writers and readers? Nothing in my librarian days quite prepared me for those. I won’t try to list them all, but the one that frustrates me the most is the frequent assertion (from genuinely concerned individuals, I’m sure) that romance novels give readers “unrealistic ideas” about life and love.

Now I’ll be the first to admit, the romance genre has its share of—shall we say, loveable quirks. Do that many men really smell like sandalwood? Maybe not. As a writer, I enjoy exploring the playful, even absurd side of love and relationships—because my real life has more than its share of absurdity. (Don’t ask me about my husband, our first date, and a collision with a flagpole.)

(…) As for those “unrealistic” charges—we’re talking about commitment, not unicorns. The day a committed romantic relationship becomes an “unrealistic” ending is the day I permanently move to Fantasyland. (Luckily, I’m ten minutes from Anaheim. It’s just down the road.)

Tessa Dare

I found some important messages in the pages of those books. I continue to love and read romance to this day. Romance matters? Absolutely. Here’s what I’ve learned, and why I love nothing more than sinking into a romance:

People—good people—can have flaws, and that doesn’t make them bad. For someone who is a perfectionist (me!) and who mentally beats herself up if not careful (me!) it was life-changing to read about characters who weren’t perfect. Yet, I adored and rooted for them just the same. Who knew? It’s okay to not be perfect.

People can grow and learn. In fact, if a person does learn a lesson and evolve from mistakes, then they aren’t really mistakes. Characters in romances—unlike many people in real life—don’t always have to be “right.” They listen. Sure, some remain stubborn, but at least they contemplate. They find hope and work toward love.

Redemption is possible. There is always hope. I believe we can’t hear those two messages enough in today’s world. After I finish a romance, some of the challenges of the day or week are erased from my heart. Reading romance is good for the soul.

Women can have cool careers. From smoke jumpers to doctors, entrepreneurs who are passionate about their businesses, sculptors, artists, photographers, journalists, architects, and moms (and the list goes on)—these women make their own decisions and find fulfillment in many ways, including believing they will end up with the love of their life. These women don’t settle for second best in anything. Including love.

Women have the power to be happy and make their own decisions. Women can call the shots. Women can walk away and say no. Women can say yes! Women can forgive (including themselves!) and find the love they know they deserve.

Kathy Steffen

When I first started writing romance I kept it a secret. I was an English teacher with a higher degree and any writing I might do was supposed to be “serious” and “literary”. I knew I would cop a lot of flack from friends and work colleagues.

But I loved writing my stories, and when my first book was published I started telling people. From then on the jokes flew thick and fast. You? Writing romance? That rubbish? What a joke! Yeah, right. Hilarious.

Beneath the “fun” and “joking”, there was a good deal of scorn for the genre I’d chosen to write in. Writing crime fiction would be far more respectable, apparently. What does it say about our society that books about murder are more highly regarded than books that celebrate love?

Of course, none of these people had read any of my books. They didn’t need to — they knew what they were like. They’d ask, “When are you going to write a real book?” or “Are you still writing those little books?”  My books are about 100,000 words, so by “little” they didn’t mean length, but that the books were trivial.

I tried not to let it get to me, but sometimes it did.

A letter from a reader changed my attitude. This letter:

Dear Anne
I have just finished your novella The Virtuous Widow and I had to write to say how much I loved it.  I don’t usually read historical romances, but I got a collection called Regency Brides with another collection and decided to keep it. I have a lot of time to read now.  Up until May 10th this year I was a 24 hour carer for my dad but he died on that day.  Just last week I was told that I have a degenerative spinal disease (my spine is crumbling) and I will be in a wheelchair in the future. My husband is disabled and we have 2 sons aged 5 and 8.  Because they need me, I usually tend to my own pain control at night time when I do most of my reading.  I really couldn’t put your book down until I had finished it.  It took my mind off everything that has happened, and took me back to Ellie and Amy’s home.

I intend to look for some other books of yours at my local library as this story really whetted my appetite.  Up until I started this, I hadn’t been able to settle to read, but this story got me going again. Thank you.

It was my first piece of hard evidence that romance matters. Really matters.

When we’re struggling through hard times, or needing escape, or hope, or reassurance or simple entertainment, how fabulous that we can find it in a romance novel.

Never doubt that romance matters. It does.

It’s also fun! And that’s an unbeatable combination.

Anne Gracie

No matter who you are, no matter where you are, love can find its way into your heart, and it doesn’t discriminate. It happens to almost everyone. Pair-bonding is one of the most basic, strongest instincts we possess, and romance novels tap into that primitive part of us that wants to be reminded that we all deserve someone in our life who cares for us unconditionally.

We want to be reminded that the world can be a sucky place, but there’s beauty there too.

Larissa Ione

In romance novels, we walk avenues closed to us in real lives, heading out on a journey of  both discovery and sacrifice, a love story where everything is hyperbolized, the men manlier, the women more vibrant, colors richer, the dialogue wittier, the passion stronger, the sex better.

And because this is the written word, every reader subtly changes and molds the story they read by becoming an essential part of it. It is the individual reader’s personal history that informs every scene. Your imagination provides the background noise in a ballroom, the quality of light in a predawn love scene, the timbre of the hero’s voice, the scent in a night blooming garden. A romance novel not invites only reader participation; it relies on it.

Connie Brockway

They were “just for fun,” but during one really, really hard year, they were the only thing that kept me from completely losing my ability to function as a human being. They reminded me that there were good people and normal human interaction was something to be prized—that what I was experiencing was abnormal and that it would get better.

In short, it was a sociological study, but it was one of myself, not some “other women” who read romance novels. I stopped asking, “Why do some women read romances?” and started asking, “Why do I care what the guy at the register thinks?”

Maybe he would think that I’m not that smart because I read romances…but I don’t know him, and I don’t really care what he thinks. And even if I did, buying a bunch of books I didn’t want to read was a really stupid way to prove that I was smart. Once I accepted that about myself—that I loved romance novels and that wasn’t going to change—I was 100% happier. I stopped coming up with excuses for reading the books I did, and started coming up with reasons for loving them.

I love romance novels because they are about big things and small things: about politics and life and cancer and war, and about home and hearth and making a perfect cookie, sometimes in the same book. They’re a reminder that not everything important is frontpage news—and, in fact, some of the most important things are details. They’re about the importance of building community.

And—yes—in a weird, meta way, romances taught me to be okay with reading romances. They’re about learning to be honest with yourself, and loving the person you are, not the person other people want you to be.

Courtney Milan

Romance again

Ancora dal sito www.readaromancebookmonth.com...

Being a fan of romance novels isn’t always easy. We get the looks, the sneers, sometimes even the leers.

Case in point: when I was single and dating, I got set up on a blind date. I had high hopes for this guy – on paper he was perfect. We decided to meet up at a coffee shop, and, arriving a little early, I pulled out a romance novel to read as I waited. When he finally arrived, here’s how the conversation went…

Dream Guy: How’s that book you’re reading?

Me: I just started it, but so far so good.


Dream Guy: (smirking) Aren’t all those kind of books the same?


Me: ‘Those kind' of books?


Slightly-Less-Dreamy Guy: Yeah. Those… (scrunching his nose up like he’s smelled bad cheese) … girly, mushy books?


Me (trying to maintain a poker face, vowing never to blind date again): You mean books with a happy ending? Books about love? Books where people are going on dates far more successful than this one?


Dud Guy: Come on, you know, those trashy romance kind.


Me (getting up from the table): You know, before you go any further, you should probably know that I’m a romance writer. I write those kind of books for a living.


Dud laughs. Then sees my deadpan face.


Dud: Wait, you’re serious?


Me: Like a heart attack.


Dud (red-faced, attempting to pull his size twelve boot out of his mouth): Oh. Well, uh, that’s cool. That’s… wow, you write books. That’s great. That’s…huh, you’re an actual author. I’d love to read one.


Me (as I leave): I don’t think so. You’re not man enough for ‘those kind‘ of books.

Needless to say, that was the one and only time I saw that guy. But the book I was reading? I still have it. I’ve read it almost a dozen times. Why? Because I know that every single time that hero will still be the Dream Guy at the end. I know he’ll only improve page by page, and that as I fall in love with him alongside the heroine, there’s no way he’s going to suddenly turn into a Dud and leave the heroine wishing she’d had the presence of mind to toss a latte in his lap before she stormed out.

What can I say? I love those kind of books. Frankly, they’re the best kind. I love knowing that as a dark as it gets, it’s all going to be okay in the end. As tortured as the hero is, he’ll always change. As sad as the heroine gets, she’ll always get her man. (…) Life needs a few more happy endings. Romance gives up the hope that we’ll get them, and the courage to continue trying no matte how many duds we encounter along the way.

(P.S. And I did eventually find my dream guy. And he’s total hero material. And he is man enough to read my books. Score one for Happy Endings!)

Gemma Halliday

I believe every single one of us, male and female, has had at least one day in our lives, and probably more than one day, when we felt ourselves lifted above the ordinary, when we felt like a hero or a heroine, when we first kissed our one true love, when we achieved a goal we’d been struggling to attain. We can’t hope to have such moments often in our lives, but we can relive them, remember them, re-feel them, especially when we read books that move us to tears. And those moments of recalling, those souvenirs of pride, praise, and passion, help us get through the tough days, the blah days, help us remember why we’re alive.

Nancy Thayer

My father once told me he thought my books were well written and it would be so wonderful when I wrote a real book. Totally puzzled, since I thought my books WERE real books, I asked, “What’s unreal about my books?”

“Well, it’s romance,” he replied. “It’s not serious.”

“It’s about love, yes, and has a happy ending, but in the first one, for instance, the hero is escaping from an abusive, criminal ex-con, who wants to kill her and take her child. It involves being clever enough to escape, telling the truth, finding justice and doing whatever it takes to protect the innocent. How is that not serious? That could be the brief synopsis for the Illiad or the Odyssey, if you want to go to points.”

It took him a few minutes and he conceded, educated Librarian that he was, that I had a point. He still had to add, “But you know, it isn’t literature, honey.”

I conceded that Deadly Little Secrets, the last book out before he died, wasn’t meant to be a timeless, uber-meaningful story for the ages (which I find bore me to tears, by the way); it was meant to entertain, to encourage and yes, to empower. However, I had to push the point. “Do you consider Shakespeare to be literature?” I asked, and he agreed that the Bard’s works were the paragon of literary achievement.

Ta-da! I had him! I smiled and said, “You know, Dad, Shakespeare wrote romance.”

Jeanne Adams

Ten years and ten books later, I have a new theory about the power and importance of romance. These books feature bluestockings and tomboys, adventuresses and ingénues, ugly ducklings and prom queens. I’ve read about heroes dealing with PTSD, heroes fighting alcoholism, scarred heroes, too good looking for their own good heroes, and some heroes with serious emotional baggage. In the end, though, the message is the same: no matter how scarred or wounded, no matter how quirky or unconventional (or no matter how staid and conventional), everyone deserves love. For every hero or heroine out there, there’s someone who will love them for their flaws and scars and will, through that love, help them be the best person they can be.

Lauren Willig

I’ve always loved the hopeful nature of the romance genre. We can go to terrible places, dark places with our hero and heroine, explore wounds painful and old, because we know that there is hope even in the darkness.

For me, the happy ever after ending (HEA) offers a dizzying freedom, because it allows us to go on journeys that might otherwise be too grim or too hard to bear. Our characters aren’t perfect people – no, they have histories, scars, wounds, and often, that gives them a tough road to walk. Yet no matter what, we know that in the end it will be all right. This doesn’t mean that everything will be perfect, all wounds healed. That is an impossibility, except in cartoons.

In a good story, the HEA for the characters will be shaped by who they are and the lives they’ve lived. For one couple, a happy ending might be a declaration of love and a proposal of marriage on the Eiffel Tower, while for the next couple it might be to sleep in one another’s arms all through the night, safe from the nightmares.

There are no limits to how our characters find happiness, and that’s how it should be. As each story is unique, so is each ending. The only constant is hope and that, I think, is a beautiful thing.

Nalini Singh

Read a romance month, ripresa

Una delle cose che mi piace di più delle scrittrici di romance è che riescono a coniugare la profondità con l'ironia. Traggo qualche altra citazione dal sito www.readaromancemonth.com.

Recently I got one of those emails filled with wisdom on how to live a good life, and since I’m always looking for wisdom, no matter how shady the source, I was reading along and nodding at bromides like, “Don’t let the sun go down on your anger,” and “Your beliefs don’t make you a better person, your behavior does.” Then I saw one solemnly given piece of advice that made my hair stand on end. It stated, “Always read stuff that will make you look good if you die in the middle of it.”

I … what? Was this a joke? No one could seriously consider picking their books according to whether some unnamed, unknown person would judge them after death. Could they? (…)

Early in my career, I realized how silly the whole romance novel debate was when I was in a bookstore autographing THE GREATEST LOVER IN ALL ENGLAND. Some guy came up and picked it up, and said, “I’d buy one for my wife, but she might think that’s what real life is supposed to be like.”

I was … without words.

As you know, doesn’t often happen.

Can you imagine a woman, any woman, walking up to Tom Clancy and saying, “I’d buy a copy of HUNT FOR RED OCTOBER for my husband, but he might imagine he was a submarine captain”?

There is no way to fight willful ignorance and prejudice, so it’s all going to come down to … do you care what other people think of your reading choices? (…)

So it’s time for us romance readers and writers to pull up our big girl panties and stop arguing with the willfully ignorant, and stop worrying about whether we are respected.

Instead, let’s all kick back and enjoy our reading. Because remember the studies I quoted at the beginning?

- According to a study cited by Dr. Joyce Brothers, women who read romance novels make love seventy-four percent more often than women who don’t read romance novels.

- According to special research from the British Medical Journal, the more orgasms you have, the longer you’re likely to live.

Assuming those studies are true, we don’t need to “read stuff that will make you look good if you die in the middle of it.” We romance readers are going to outlive all the critics anyway.

Christina Dodd

If I have to say out loud that romance matters, it means that the default supposition is that it doesn’t, and that’s where I lose my mind. Then I feel defensive, and I have to say why it matters, I have to explain that there are amazing writers out there telling meaningful stories about emotion and human nature and the meaning of life, and there are, but that isn’t why romance matters.

It matters because you like it. It matters because I like it. And that’s it.

That’s enough.

I just want it said that romance matters no more or less than any story, and it matters for the same reason that any story matters; because engaging in story in any form feeds the soul.

Lani Diane Rich

I could write a romance. How hard could it be? I was married, with two kids to prove that I’d figured out the mechanics. And there was supposed to be a formula, wasn’t there? A magic pattern that led to two people being together forever, until death. I just had to follow it and I could be a best seller. And maybe in the process, I could understand my own life, or at least my parent’s marriage, which continues to defy all explanation, even now that Dad has gone.

But it turns out, a love story is less a formula than it is a puzzle. It seems simple at first. The frame is built: the ending is happy, the goals are clear. But the box has no picture. If we could see what was coming, in a lifetime with one person, we might not start, much less finish. And yet, we keep putting the pieces together, pulling them apart, turning them, trying again, praying for a miracle.

Christine Merrill

Anyone who actually reads romance (as opposed to those who sit back and judge it based on the fact that physical intimacy makes some people uncomfortable) knows that there is so much more to it than just physical attraction. Romance teaches us that love is to be cherished and shared. That it lifts and edifies. That it never degrades or belittles. It is not jealous or manipulative. And isn’t that a lesson we WANT our sons and daughters to learn? Don’t we want to give them the strength to not only become successful and autonomous, but the power to pass that on to their partners? To their children?

Darynda Jones

I write romance because I love reading it, because it engages my emotions, leaves me feeling good. And because every now and then I’m told that something I’ve written made a difference in someone’s life. Most of the romance writers I know have at one time or another received a letter, an email or a Facebook message from someone who recently came through a devastating experience. Maybe they sat by their husband’s hospital bed as he lay dying. Perhaps they had breast cancer. Whatever the circumstances, readers have taken the time to tell me that my books helped get them through it, that reading a story that occasionally made them laugh and had a positive ending made the pain of their loss or personal ordeal more bearable, if only for a short while.

And that matters. To me it matters a whole helluva lot.

Susan Andersen

Here’s what so many non-romance-readers don’t get: reality is not the point. 

No one ever needs to reads a novel to learn more about reality; it’s what we live in, and it’s pretty difficult to avoid. (Believe me, I’ve tried.) If you want factual knowledge about the fascinating world we live in, read non-fiction or watch the news. But in our current culture, it seems as if a novel is only good, or good for you, if it serves some kind of instructive purpose. We’re somewhat embarrassed to admit that we do anything just for pleasure these days, and even more embarrassed to admit that we read or watch something in the deliberate pursuit of emotion.

But that’s what novels are for: to elicit emotion. And the reason we read romance is because we want to experience the best emotions: tenderness, passion, sacrifice, healing, joy, satisfaction. Is it bad to want that?

I’ve heard romance novels referred to as trash even by some of the genre’s most devoted readers. I’m sympathetic rather than offended because I understand where it’s coming from: we’re all swimming in the same reality here, and if you want to go against the current, you learn to poke fun at yourself, and your tastes, before other people inevitably do. Love is not trash, however, and romance readers are not dumpster-divers but rather connoisseurs of emotion. They tend to discuss their favorite novels–the flavors and complexities and textures–as meticulously as sommeliers at an international wine tasting.

I have also heard romance novels compared to junk food. If that’s true, I’m here to tell you, my standard diet of reality occasionally needs a layer of buttercream frosting. The emotions engendered by a romance novel tend to soften the edges of those days when reality can get a little brutal. And the glow of happily-ever-after flatters everyone in its wake, including tired husbands with dark circles under their eyes and dishpan hands and muddy shoes from having just taken out the garbage. After I read a romance, I have no illusions that my husband is a rakish duke, and I don’t fault him for not turning into one. But to me, he is as sexy and romantic and wonderful as any romance hero could ever be. Because reality is more than just how things are . . . reality is also how we see them. And the two are not mutually exclusive.

Is it bad to read a book that was created to elicit emotion? Only if it’s bad to love music, art, poetry, dreaming, dancing, and everything about life that isn’t related to survival and Spartan practicality. Could you live in a world without romance novels, ice cream, twinkle lights, sandcastles, flower bouquets, hugging, holding hands and kissing?

Well, sure.

But would you really want to?

Lisa Kleypas

Read a romance month, ancora

Continua il Read a romance month, (http://www.readaromancemonth.com/ e su facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ReadARomanceMonth) e così ne parlo ancora una volta.

Rimango sempre più stupita non solo dalla profondità, semplicità e verità delle parole di queste autrici, ma anche dal loro essere alla mano e disponibili. Elizabeth Hoyt risponde a un mio commento sulla scena da lei messa (che riguarda un carciofo...in apparenza!), tutte le scrittrici echeggiano il commento che viene lasciato dalle lettrici anche solo con un "grazie mille", la creatrice del sito si scusa direttamente con me perché molti contest non sono aperti internazionalmente...Pamela Morsi risponde dopo appena 6 ore al mio commento alle sue parole pubblicato in goodreads, e via dicendo. E poi, queste autrici che raccontano, come se fosse normale, di periodi di miseria, di difficoltà, di lutti e di problemi psicologici, di aver cambiato venti lavori in dieci anni, senza perdere il sorriso e la forza interiore.
Niente di più lontano dalla gran parte degli autori e delle autrici italiane: autocompiaciuti, sdegnosi, pieni di vanità e desiderosi di rimarcare la loro differenza dalla "gente comune". Non so perché avviene, o se è solo una mia impressione, magari sbagliata. Comunque in questi giorni mi sembra di vivere e capire appieno il modo di dire "ha trovato l'America", o quando si dice "è un altro mondo". So che non è tutto oro quello che luccica, ma devo ammettere che anche questo sta smontando molti dei miei pregiudizi sugli Stati Uniti.

Romance, more than any other genre, goes directly to the heart of the matter and declares that happiness is not only possible, but achievable in the here and now.

And it does so by taking the hero and the heroine on a journey of transformation.  There will be pain, there will be setbacks, there will be pasts that seem too terrible to escape and flaws that seem too ingrained to overcome.  But at some point, in the hands of a great author, these characters rise from the ashes of their fear and their mistakes.  They now understand what it means to make good choices; and they do make those good choices, even if—heck, particularly if—it is the toughest thing they’ve ever done. 

It is the most life-affirming message one could find anywhere.  And that’s why romance matters.

Sherry Thomas

Romance gives us hope no matter how dark the day. It offers refuge when we are weary but most of all it never fails us because a true romance has a satisfying ending. And like all great romance novels, one day my story will end and I know in my heart, whether in the flesh or in the spirit, the man I love will be there beside me, reaching for my hand.

Debra Webb

Romances celebrate hope.

They are about the hope of the characters finding their way through trials and tribulations to their very own happily ever after. They affirm the importance and the value of the pair bond, the committed couple, and that value always stretches beyond the hero and the heroine, imbuing their community, their families, their friends, and their own lives with joy, happiness, and hope.

Romance matters because it gives us all hope that we, too, just like the heroes and the heroines of our favorite novels, will prevail in spite of troubles and turmoil; that we will strive to become a better version of ourselves; and that we will find our own happily ever after. Romance holds out hope for a better, happier, more loving future.

Laurin Wittig

I read romance because I believe there is more to humanity than eating and sleeping and work. There is the spirit and the imagination and they must be fed in order that they not whither and die. There is adventure and humor and love and when I read romance books I remember the best there is of life and people and I close the book with a smile on my face and joy in my heart.

Elizabeth Hoyt

Romance matters because there’s enough heartbreak in this life and when your own heart is aching, there’s nothing more uplifting than to read about hearts being healed by the power of love.

Teresa Medeiros

While many people believe that the heart of a romance novel is an extraordinary love story, I also believe that the heart of a good romantic story is hope. Readers are often moved and even changed by reading romance novels. Something in the story resonates with what’s happening in their life, or what they want to be happening in their life. The love story gives them hope that they, too, can have that magical, wonderful, amazing story, that it doesn’t just exist on paper but also quite possibly in their own lives. (…) Readers of romance novels find joy, fun, adventure, thrills, and transformation within the pages of our books, and without romance novels, the world would be a little darker and heavier.

Barbara Freethy

Romance readers and writers are accustomed to the cliché of critics deriding romance novels for having Happily Ever After endings. That strikes me as strange on many levels.

For starters, I’ve never understood the belief that unhappiness is real and happiness isn’t.

A high school English teacher assigned us to each write a poem about the life story of someone we knew — our class’s version of the Spoon River Anthology. I wrote the story of someone who’d had a good life. The teacher was outraged because “It wasn’t realistic” and threatened a poor grade. I said it was based on my mother’s life, and was factual. Teacher-parent-principal conference ensued. Mom confirmed my statement. Teacher still maintained it was not realistic. Mom getting irate. Mom triumphed … I wanted to write another verse about that. Mom vetoed that literary endeavor.

But even putting aside the question of whether happy endings are realistic, romance novels aren’t about endings at all – they’re about beginnings. (…) By the end of a romance, the struggles, the joys, the self-discoveries in the story bring the characters to the beginning of a better life than they had before. It’s brought them not to an end, but to their beginning…

Their Happy Beginning.

Patricia McLinn

Romance novels remind me of a quote from Auntie Mame – the world is a banquet and most poor suckers are starving to death.

As long as there are romance novels it means that’s there’s always a safe place to go to, no matter how tough reality is. There’s always an afternoon or evening that can belong just to us, and no amount of criticism or demands can take away from them.

I may be lucky enough never to have had cancer, but they’ve sure saved my life a number of times. They can save yours too.

Anne Stuart