The Categorical Post on Category Romances…Except Not Really

As Sarah noted yesterday, the fine folks at Romancenovel.tv posted a video of the two of us talking about romance novels. (WHY do I look and sound like a chipmunk whenever I’m recorded? It’s enough to drive a girl to drink. And I’m allergic to alcohol, which means I end up chugging chocolate milk, which really doesn’t do much for my romantic image. GODDAMMIT.) (Also, in case this wasn’t clear: the people at Romancenovel.tv did a great job. I’m just the least telegenic person ever, with the exception of Carrot Top.) Anyway, if you ever wondered how high-pitched and squeaky I can get when I become excited talking about something, this is an opportunity.

So I meant to write this long, thoughtful post about the evolution of the category romance and the differences in style between American and British/Australian category releases to go with the video, and I was outlining it when I realized, no, what I REALLY wanted to do was post a Top 10 Things I Learned from Category Romances and a very silly comparison table. Screw erudition! Capsule summaries are full of win and awesome!

Top Ten Things I Learned from Reading Category Romances As a Girl
(In other words: Most of these cover old-school category romances.)

10. It’s entirely possible to be somebody’s mistress while remaining a virgin.
9. Billionaires who regularly date actresses and supermodels will find your mousiness and awkwardness refreshingly real and promptly fall in love with you.
8. “No” means “Kiss me more punishingly.” Remember: punishing kisses are a sign he’s actually in love with you.
7. Child support? Who needs child support? Real women raise their babies alone! And conceal their existence from their fathers!
6. Australia sure has a lot of Greeks and Italians.
5. And so does England.
4. Sheikhs are never devout Muslims.
3. A traumatic sexual past can be fixed by fucking your boss.
2. It’s entirely possible to be the mother to a secret baby while never having had sex, even if your name isn’t Mary and you’re not a native of Nazareth.
1. OH MY GOD ORAL SEX IS REALLLLLLLLLLL. (Again: Thank you, Anne Stuart. You changed my life.)

Key Differences between Category Romances in the American Mode vs. Category Romances in the British/Australian Mode

English/Australian Category Romances American Category Romances
Fetishizes swarthy men, but only if they’re rich (Italians, Greeks, sheikhs) and stripped of most of their cultural trappings, with the exception of their accents and their machismo. Fetishizes redneck men, but only if they’re rich (cowboys with their own ranches, NASCAR) and stripped of most of their class trappings, with the exception of their accents and their machismo.
The meek shall inherit the earth–and by “meek,” I mean “secretaries,” and by “inherit,” I mean “marry,” and by “the earth,” I mean “their billionaire boss.” The meek shall inherit the earth–and by “meek,” I mean “incredibly spunky owners of independent businesses,” and by “inherit,” I mean “marry,” and by “the earth,” I mean “the forceful captains of enterprise who are trying to buy out their companies.”
We love our virgin boardroom mistresses. We love our virgin amnesiac cowboy brides.
We <3 doctors! We <3 military men!
Dude, where’s Canada in all this? I know, right? When was the last time you read a category romance with Canadian protagonists?

Have your own Top 10 list to contribute, or more differences to note? Let us know in the comments.

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Random Musings

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  1. Joanna S. says:

    Rinda!  That link was sooo very, very awesome!

    I absolutely loved how the word “cock” made everyone laugh without fail.  Yup.  Cock’ll get ya every time.

  2. Rinda says:

    Someone forwarded that link to me and I about peed my pants laughing—especially with the guy who REALLY got into the reading. 😉

  3. Kinley says:

    Thanks, SK, and all you other connoisseuses (how’s THAT for profficiency in the French lingo ;-)of Canadian romance titles/authors. I will definitely be doing some long, hard research this weekend, after I make atrip to my local library to hunt for some of these titles. Thanks, gals!

  4. veinglory says:

    I would like to mention that Australia actually *does* have an awful lot of Greeks (2% of the population in the 1986 census) and quite a few Italians.

  5. Ocy says:

    Ok, an SB store is possibly the very best idea EVER (although not necessarily best for my paycheque).

  6. Gail Dayton says:

    I learned about sex from reading 1) the Ian Fleming/James Bond books my missionary uncle stashed in the top of my closet when they stayed with us one summer and 2) HAWAII by J. Michener. I was maybe 13 when I read those…

    That was a LOOOOOOOOONG time ago…

  7. Chryssa says:

    Kinley,

    As you noted, just because someone is from someplace, doesn’t mean that she’ll set her books there too.  However, since the odds are better that a Canadian author is more likely than an American author to set a book in Canada, I’d suggest you check out the RWA chapter links for the Canada.  I know Calgary (http://www.calgaryrwa.com)had a very active chapter as of a few years ago.  Take a look at the Published Author lists and links on these sites.

    The mention of Canadian settings also brought C.J. Carmichael to mind. Her website says her most recent one is set in New England and she did a number of books that were set in a fictional town – don’t know whether it was a Canadian town or not.

    Some of her earlier books definitely have Canadian settings:

    “A Sister Would Know” has a storyline tied to Rogers Pass, BC.

    The “Proposal” trilogy is based in the Canadian Rockies with Canmore being the major town player.

    She’s also got a book set in Ontario’s cottage country and another one where the heroine is an RCMP officer.

    Also, Judith Arnold is Canadian (last I heard, she’s living in the U.S. now) and many of her earlier books had Canadian settings.

    I agree; I’d love to see more Canadian settings. 

    Chryssa

  8. talpianna says:

    If Candy’s the chipmunk, does that mean Sarah’s the fish friar?

    Oral sex?  Is that something to do with screaming?  Or does it mean doing it with your dentist?

    Kinley, I don’t think Canadians are interested in sex.  I, La Belle Taupe Sans Merci, have been endeavoring for simply ages over on another forum to entice a Richardson’s Ground Squirrel from Vancouver into my burrow, but he won’t leave his wife.

    yet22—means there’s still hope, I guess.

  9. Lara says:

    Back at my library, my coworkers and I used to joke about the ultimate Harlequin Presents title, The Millionaire Sheik Tycoon’s Virgin Boardroom Mistress’ Love Child. I commented once that I had no idea so many sheiks (not to mention their small old-fashioned desert kingdoms) still existed, nor that they all adapted so readily to monogamy.

    But I can’t mock Harlequins too much, since they jump-started my education. After I finished all my grandmother’s Readers Digests, I started in on her Harlequins. I remember lying there reading and wondering A) just what the heck that man was doing to her, and B) why it was so darned fascinating.

  10. Kate says:

    I remember getting some vague notions via Danielle Steel, then a more proper education from early Jude Deveraux. I guess my life’s a little boring…I may yet have to pick up some Harlequins!

    And Lara, The Millionaire Sheik Tycoon’s Virgin Boardroom Mistress’ Love Child would have to be my first !

    Oh…“taken94.” Hm.

  11. Kate says:

    I forgot to mention that I’m mousy and awkward, yet refreshingly real unlike those damn supermodels and heiresses.

  12. Alan says:

    I haven’t read any category romance because I want to avoid Secret Baby plots at all costs. I really don’t want a Secret Baby to sneak up on me like a little ninja when I’m reading a romance novel. That and my firm belief that mistresses hymen’s should have been left behind in high school via a bottle of wine coolers and some guy named Chip make me not want to read category romance.

  13. Anonym2857 says:

    It always curls my hair a bit when I read the comments demeaning my beloved category books – especially when the words come from someone who’s never read one.  True, the worst of them can suck wallpaper off walls, just like the worst in any other genre.  But so many of them are incredibly good reads.  I do find myself snickering when I read a rave review, oftentimes from the same people who ‘dissed categories, about the latest HB from Some Well-Known author, and it turns out that the book that they just paid $22 for is a reprint of the tale that I originally paid 85 cents for as a category romance. Especially since a lot of the books reprinted at the greatest expense are not even representative of the best reads, IMO.  But then maybe I’m just cheap… and while it was a good read for less than $1.00, it’s robbery for $22.00, I dunno.

    The titles can be silly, but I mostly overlook them.  In fact, when I scan the shelves, I rarely even see the title on my first glance. I’m first looking for the author’s name. If it’s someone I like or someone I’ve not heard of before, then I investigate further and read the title and the blurb on the back and look at the cover.

    For those who want to read the book, but cringe to be seen in public with it, I’d recommend these covers:  http://hardbacker.com  I u.se them all the time to protect my books from wear. (I tend to toss them in my backpack or purse, and these save them from being folded and mutilated.)  An added benefit is that for those covers requiring a plain brown (or some other color) wrapper, these do the trick wonderfully.  Though I can remember many years ago I was sitting on a crowded bus, reading a Harlequin Presents.  The dude next to me kept leaning in closer and closer, looking over my shoulder.  I thought he was some sort of letch and turned to snarl at him. He got all sheepish, and ‘fessed up that he was looking at the title to see if it was one he’d read. I didn’t believe him at first, but we started talking, and to my surprise, the dude knew his Harlies! LOL Too bad he didn’t have a decent book cover – he was too embarrassed to bring them out in public.

    And for those of you commenting on the Canadian locales—I did a search by location on my Byron book database, and it gives me 281 different titles where the story takes place in Canada. Of that, I’m just eye-balling the list, but it looks like at least 100 of these are historicals – mostly frontier, some regency, colonial, a handful of WWII/40s/50s, and a bunch of inspirational frontier tales. There are also several Christmas themed ones and a couple time travels, and yes, even a sheik thrown in there.

    I’m from the American southwest, so my geographic mind view pretty much stops and the Rio Grande.  I can’t tell you whether any of the stories are accurate, in terms of locale description, and I don’t read many historicals to give you a good perspective anyway.  But I can tell you that several of the authors on the list tell a mean story, if nothing else.

    Examples would be Judith Duncan, CJ Carmichael, Margot Dalton, Elizabeth Lowell, Katie MacAlister.

    It would take up too much room to post it here (not to mention I’m not even sure I’d know how to do it anyway). However, if you are interested, let me know and I’ll send you the list.

    Diane

  14. The thing I learned from my first romances (way back in the early 90s now)

    1. If you want a stylish Elizabethan gown, all a girl has to do is cut out half the neck-line et voila.

    2. A time traveling gal only needs a smart looking sash to cinch in those pesky old school gowns.  No corset needed.

    3. A considerate lover will take months to teach you the art of love and then in a fit of passion/anger forget himself. (Hymens beware!)

    4. Pearls* make a very interesting and strangely popular aide d’amour for the men of Elizabeth I’s court.

    5. Eyeshadow had mystic properties to change eye color especially when used by time traveling gals.

    6. Never go out for a carriage ride when there’s even a single cloud in the sky.  There will be a horrible storm and your carriage will be waylaid/over-turned/mired in mud and some dark stranger will forget himself in a fit of passion again.

    * Now figuring out how exactly those pearls aided in d’amour was an interesting experience that mostly ended in my going “ooh! gross!”

  15. LadyRhian says:

    Hoo boy, do I feel left out! I got my sex education in 7th grade via reading the letters pages in Playgirl. And let me tell you, those were eye-openers!

    Not to mention the pictures. Playgirl was where I saw my first “uncut” guy.

  16. Charlene says:

    I, La Belle Taupe Sans Merci, have been endeavoring for simply ages over on another forum to entice a Richardson’s Ground Squirrel from Vancouver into my burrow, but he won’t leave his wife.

    You just have to tell him to gopher it.

  17. MeggieMacGroovie says:

    Loving this!

    Ok, my sex ed. was pretty much through books as well. Loveswepts in the early 80’s, with a dash of Valley of the Horses, and then, the *gasp* finding of my mothers Anais Nin erotica collection.

    On one hand, my reading left me looking forward to the sex stuff, so much, I was worried I might like it *too* much. On the other, teen boys aren’t much like the grown men in the books, major let down when I learned the fun stuff, came with the headfuck of working out what the hell they were thinking and why they acted one way in private and another in public..yeah..ungood.

    As someone who lives in AU, I can say, a massive amount of Greeks and Italians live here.

  18. Kim says:

    Ok here’s my list. I call it the Mousy Secretary Rules of Romance

    1. Although captains of industry and able to make billions at the drop of a hat, millionaire/billionaires are incapabable of using contraceptive devices correctly hence all the secret babies and hidden mistresses.

    2. While we thought the billionaires were in their boardrooms making business deals, they were actually in in the boardrooms making babies with their mousy secretaries.

    3. There are Greeks, Italians, Sheiks, and Spainiards everywhere, but only tall ones.

    3b. All Greeks, Italians, Sheiks, Spainard and to a lesser extent French and Argentinians are over 6 ft. tall.

    4. Millionaires/Billionaires must force/trick/coerce and black-mail their mousey pregnant secretaries into marrying them because heaven knows no mousy secretary would want to be married to a drop dead gorgeous millionaire/billionaire.

    5. There an awful lot of French and Italian counts,Dukes, ect out there seducing their mousy secretaries even though both countries abolished their monarchy a while ago.

    6. Although millionaires/billionaires are extremely promiscuous before they find their mousey secretary, because their love is true they are faithful after marriage and extremely offended at the thought that they might not be.

    7. All the millionaire/billionaire’s ex-girlfriends/supermodels are extremely bitchy and un kind to the current mousey secretary/love of the millionaire/billionaire.

    7b.The bitchy ex-girlfriend/mistresses were unfaithful too and has made the millionaire/billionaire distrustful of the mousy secretarie’s love.

    8.There are a lot of hidden countries in Europe that no one has ever heard of that have lonely, troubled bachelor princes looking for their own mousy secretary to love.

    8b. There are also a lot of hidden countries in the Middle East that no one has ever heard of that have lonely, troubled bachelor sheiks who are also looking for mousy secretaries to love and kidnap as proof of their undying love.

  19. Kate says:

    So this is the perfect forum for it…can anyone recommend a good historical category read for me? I always get intimidated by the selection at Powell’s and then whimper off to the tea shop with some familiar Nora Roberts or Jennifer Crusie in my arms.

  20. Janet McC says:

    When I was small – probably 5 or 6 (about 1957 or ‘58) – my mother bought us a book titled something like “Growing Up” (I can’t find a reference to it online, though my Google-fu is usually pretty good).

    My main memories of it are a photograph of a cock treading a hen and the statement that a woman’s egg is “smaller than the period at the end of this sentence” and the sperm is even tinier.  I’m fairly sure there was also a photograph of a sperm entering an egg.

    So I figured I knew what was what.  I don’t recall being particularly surprised by the filmstrip we were shown in … seventh or ninth grade, explaining menstruation.

    I was, however, majorly fuzzy on mechanics.  I mean, my brothers and I had baths together, graduating to solo baths as each of us reached the age of 6 or so.  Somehow, that little dangly thing popped out sperms.

     

    Fast-forward to ninth grade or so.  Another girl and I walking home from the bus stop found a really, really nasty piece of porn lying in the street.  One of us read it, then passed it to the other.  I don’t recall the title, or any specific scenes – only that it made the mechanics (and quite a few things I’d just as soon not have known) very clear.

    It made The Canterbury Tales much more interesting.

    (My father had a doctorate in Am Lit, and our shelves held a beautifully illustrated (no, not those pictures) modern translation as well as a version in Middle English)). 

    I read the Tales first as a sophomore, having gathered when my brother was assigned the book as a senior that there was Something Of Interest But Not In The Textbook Version.

    A beard, quoth he?
                Tee hee, quoth she
    And clapped the window to.

  21. Danny says:

    I thought it worth mentioning in regards to Canada that I’ve actually read a Harlequin Superromance book that takes place in Alberta, “Into the Badlands” by Caron Todd.

  22. I went to high school with WAY too many Greek and Armenian boys . . . all of them tit-high with tufts of hair peeing out the back of their shirts.

    That made me laugh so hard I almost peed, too.

  23. Lennie says:

    Greeks and Italians are pretty damn common in Australia, really.  But I must mix with the wrong crowd, because I’ve yet to see one of these Boardroom Billionaire ones that are supposedly so thick on the ground.  (Particularly with accents – you’d think the families of Italian billionaires must have worked their way up over here, Australia not being a traditionally attractive place for rich Europeans.)  Then again, I live in one of those cities that isn’t Sydney or Melbourne and thus doesn’t exist in Romancelandia.

    Maybe I should get my professional admin self down south to find one to snare with my haphazard hairstyle and sassy (okay, crass) northern speechifyin’.  Except that I hear it’s cold down there.  And full of rich wankers.

  24. Angelina says:

    Kim said: “8b. There are also a lot of hidden countries in the Middle East that no one has ever heard of that have lonely, troubled bachelor sheiks who are also looking for mousy secretaries to love and kidnap as proof of their undying love.”

    Lol – I remember one of the first categories I read had a sheik from a country I had never heard of. I was only 12 at the time so I decided to check out the encyclopedia. Imagine my heartbreak when I realized it did not exist.

    My word but45 – But at least I will always have my Australian Greeks.

  25. B says:

    Ha, my introduction to the romance genre was through categories. One was an impossibly sweet medical romance set in Glasgow (I reread I don’t know how many times) and another one was a very racy silhouette. I stopped reading after a certain number of pages… but then some point later I started liking what it said and picked it up.

    I’ve been feeling like reading a medical romance for ages now, and I browse futilely through ASDA (Walmart in UK) looking for one I’d want to read but all the babies, fathers and them having a previous relationship in the blurbs/titles makes me not want to buy them. Big turn offs for me are having children/pregnancy as a catalyst for the relationship or resuming a relationship that was previously established.

  26. michelle says:

    I recently came across the smartbitches site and can I just say I’m in love?

    I’m completely obsessed with historical romances. Occasionally I find myself embarrassed about naming the book I’m reading when asked. I then swear to pick up a national best seller or something I can proudly proclaim that I read—and maybe have an intellectual conversation about.

    …then I laugh and pick up the new Christina Dodd.

    GOOD THING I FOUND THIS SITE!

    I am Canadian. But I have to admit, the few times I’ve come across a romance novel with a Canadian setting, I’ve shuddered…in horror and immediately returned it to the library.

    The guys come across as such sweet, nice, asexual weaklings. Especially the mounties. It’s just embarrassing.

    I want to read about a big, brawny Canadian man who will throw the heroine up against a wall and “kiss her punishingly”.

    Enough of the “chaste kisses”. I want some double entendres and sizzling euphemisms. I don’t care if a few beavers and “ehs” are thrown in…just give me a Canadian alpha male for once!

  27. Kinley says:

    Michelle, I’m with you on that score. I am tired of the stereotype of the non-descript, vanilla-flavoured Canadian male, rugged and plaid-shirt-wearing, but with no real personality.

    Being from Canada yourself, don’t you agree that we have such a huge array af people here that you would imagine a novelist capable of coming up with something a little more interesting than a regurgitation of the mountie from Due South?

    Hey, I’m not saying that a guy like that might have some residual appeal, but it’s been done and done again, am I right? And this country was settled by sexy, brawny men and impetuous, adventersome women of all description, social class, and ethnic background—I would like to see that reflected in a romance novel. I think a historical setting involving Canada, written in a historically and culturally accurate way would made a marvelous setting for some steamy romance.

    I keep talking and thinking about it, maybe it’s time I do it. And it sounds like if I did, I would have some readers out there 🙂

  28. robinjn says:

    Hey, I’m not saying that a guy like that might have some residual appeal, but it’s been done and done again, am I right? And this country was settled by sexy, brawny men and impetuous, adventersome women of all description, social class, and ethnic background—I would like to see that reflected in a romance novel.

    Well it’s not Canada, and it’s not even Romance, it’s mystery with romance (and some lovely sexy scenes). But Dana Stabenow, who is a native of Alaska, writes books that really bring the area to life. Her Kate Shugak series (about an Aleut investigator) is full of real people. One of my favorites centers on the good time girls that followed the gold rush north and ended up marrying way up.

  29. Nanny says:

    I can think of two really good Canadian categories. One is called “A Nice Girl Like You” by Alexandra Sellers. It’s set in Toronto between a photographer and a journalist – nary a secretary, billionaire, or pregnant mistress in sight! The other one I read forever ago, but it was about a French Tahitian woman in Canada who ended up hosting a French cooking show and had to marry the hero to get a visa (the network didn’t want to sponsor her because they thought they should hire locally-grown French Canadians for French food, although anybody who thinks French Canadian food would be anything like Tahitian food just because they both speak French needs their head examined). I believe that one was in Vancouver. So yes, they’re out there!

  30. Anonymous says:

    Um, speaking of getting sex ed from romance novels. I think I’m still getting sex ed from romance novels.

    Having no personal sexual experience (a fact that I’m okay with… nay, proud of), the whole process kind of baffles me. How does it all fit? How does this work, how does that work?

    And although romance novels don’t always explain everything- like how the heck he isn’t crushing her if he’s on top (??) they do help a lot with the general idea of how it all works. I’ve got to say, I think most of the basics I know are probably from romance novels (and I’m in college now), or from the scenes that my friends and I skipped to when we used to read adult books in junior high.

    And on what B said regarding kids in romance novels. I, too, never got this. I love kids, and can’t wait to have them, but it kind of weirds me to see some 5-yr-old sitting on the couch with Mr. Hottie and Ms. Sexy who are so about to do it. Who wants a kid involved in their erotica? It seems odd to me.

  31. bdenitto says:

    1. If you are suffering from amnesia, the local hunk will swoop in and make everything okay. A bonus if you are pregnant with someone else’s child.
    2. Greek lovers always believe the scheming daughter of a family friend who says she saw you with another man.
    3. British men will sell their daughters in order to seal a deal or save the family home and/or business.
    4. Every pair of twin girls has one virgin and one whore.
    5. Women never have sex with anyone else after they breakup with their true love.
    6. Greek mothers only want their sons to marry Greek women.
    7. Fathers of illegitimate children only find out when the child comes down with a sickness or genetic disorder and the mother needs their help.
    8. The gardener’s son always becomes a successful businessman who wants revenge.
    9. The cover art never quite matches the character descriptions in the book.
    10. The boss may never mess around with his P.A. but the temp is fair game.

  32. Rachel says:

    There’s a great book about the rise of Harlequin – and by extension Mills & Boon and category romances in general – called “The Merchants of Venus: Inside Harlequin and the Empire of Romance”, by Paul Grescoe.  There’s a bit in there that I found fascinating on why Harlequin, a Canadian company, never published books with Canadian settings.

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