These are just a few of the ways I heard people talking about romance novels growing up, and I internalized that message. I scoffed at my friend’s mom who read romance by the paper bag full and stacked them all over their house (sorry Mrs. G.). Simultaneously I devoured books by authors like Mercedes Lackey where the elements of romance were only veiled by where the librarian placed them on the shelf. I sought out love stories in fantasy and science fiction like I was dying of thirst in the desert. It wasn’t until I was in graduate school that I read a romance on purpose.
Once I started to read romance I questioned everything I had internalized about these books. I ended up questioning my own feminism and my relationship to femininity. I nurtured my newfound love of romance novels with a job at a bookstore that basically sent me home with free paperbacks to be “recycled” almost every week. My classmates and I passed the books around, some reading ironically and some sharing their favorite authors and unabashedly loving romance. I’m writing this article for myself, for the me who had been sold the messages that romance books were inherently bad, that they were all the same, and that they were not worth my time.
According to the Romance Writers of America there are two qualities that a book must have to be a romance novel; the main plot must center on a love story, and that it ends happily. That’s a really wide umbrella, really more of a circus tent. You’ll note that that umbrella doesn’t say that the romance has to be straight, white, or just between two people. This allows for a more diverse genre. Romance spans a multitude of sub-genres and there’s a niche for everyone. There’s fantasy romance, cowboy romance, erotic dystopian science fiction romance, and romance set in every era of history. Here are a few recommendations for some of the more popular sub-genres to get you started.
Contemporary Romance
Basically, this is a giant subgenre that includes any romance set in the time period in which it was written. Everything from motorcycle clubs and romantic suspense, to sweet small towns where everyone owns a bakery and gossips about whose cousin was seen kissing the new girl in town.
Contemporary romances that I would recommend include…