Another day, another article about genre fiction, including romance, selling quite happily in digital format. And the reason?
Wait for it….
Reader embarrassment!
Kindle-owning bibliophiles are furtive beasts. Their shelves still boast classics and Booker winners. But inside that plastic case, other things lurk. Sci-fi and self-help. Even paranormal romance, where vampires seduce virgins and elves bonk trolls.
The ebook world is driven by so-called genre fiction, categories such as horror or romance. It's not future classics that push digital sales, but more downmarket fare.
Lovely.
Here's the thing:
I hear from many readers weekly that they do feel embarrassment about their love of romance. Sometimes they are conflicted about finding that their feelings of loving what they read are at cross-purposes with their feelings of dislike or even revulsion when they identify problematic elements within it. Others say they feel shame and embarrassment about what other people say or think about the romance genre, or better yet, the people who read it.
The people who write to me about these subjects do not ever, and I mean EVER, include a statement that they are embarrassed because they are reading books that aren't any good.
They usually go on and on about the books they did find incredible, the ones that made their brains fire up and made them stay up all night long, and how they love finding new books to enjoy.
Never once do they say they are embarrassed because the romances they read aren't any good.
It's the opposite: they know romances that are high quality narrative stories, and they can identify books that made them think and consider abstract conflicts and emotional tangles as much as any other lauded piece of fiction.
They are embarrassed and ashamed by the reputation of the genre among those people who care about what it is you're reading. They feel awkward about the packaging, the covers and the descriptions, the bare chests and the o-face heroines depicted in lurid colors.
They may not want to defend the genre to anyone, and thus hide it and keep it an intimate secret.
I personally don't feel any shame about what I read, even though I'm still asked by people whether I read “other things,” (so my brain doesn't atrophy, I am guessing). I have romance everywhere in my home, and I'll recommend a romance to anyone who asks me.
So when someone sends me an email, begging me not to publish it (which I wouldn't) but wanting to share their conflicted love and shame about the romance they read, I don't yell at them that they should stand up and defend themselves. Often they are thanking me for running this site where so many romance-reading book addicts hang out (my response: Just wait until you see how many romance communities there are online now. We're freaking everywhere.) There is often a sense of relief and comfort in finding people with whom they can talk about their romances.
Thus every time one of these articles comes out that reinforces all the negatives that romance readers face when they select the reading material they love, it makes me want to yell louder because the key fallacy is the repeated supposition that romance isn't any good and that's why people are embarrassed about it.
No one should be ashamed of what they read – and no one should be made to feel ashamed about what they read. But look, here's another article that rests an argument on exactly that kind of reader shaming. This article today does it: Ebooks sell because people are embarrassed that they love crap. Digital readers proliferate because they allow privacy. (NB: this isn't actually true because buying a digital book ties your name and credit card transaction to the title purchased, a data point that can be shared with bloody anyone).
Articles like these imply that everyone is ashamed of their reading when they read romance or any genre fiction for that matter. Terms like “boundless idiocy” and “God help us” and “reading public in private is lazy and smutty.”
I am not an idiot, I am not lazy, and neither are you. None of this is true.
But there are many readers who do judge themselves harshly for liking romance, and these are the types of articles that make me infuriated on their behalf, which is why I don't shut up about them, and ignore them. Some readers internalize these messages, feeding their own shame with the reinforced idea that they should be embarrassed. And that is why I yell.
Julia, who reviewed Everything I Know About Love, I Learned From Romance Novels recently, said at the end of her review: Never feel guilty for reading something. A book can mean anything to anyone.
Romance means a lot to people who love it, even those readers who harbor shame and embarrassment for loving the genre so much. Articles like this one infuriate me because they are saying someone should feel bad for loving romance, that readers should feel ashamed that they enjoy books that this writer thinks are dross.
No. No, you should not. Read what you like, then read more of it, and go on with your badass self.
Ever tried holding an ipad like that for an extended period?
Apart from that, I think it’s just a trolling article, designed to drag out the supporters and create some comment to get The Guardian trending.
Ignore it. Do you really care what this person thinks?
I just went and read the whole article and this sentence in particular makes me so mad!!!
“The reading public in private is lazy and smutty.”
How rude!! And untrue!!
I just went and read the whole article, and this sentence in particular made me very mad:
“The reading public in private is lazy and smutty.”
How rude!! And untrue!!!
“…keeping shelf space for books that proclaim my cleverness.”
Good Lord in a bucket. That’s something I did when I was barely eighteen and deciding which books to display on the single shelf in my dorm room.
I am adamant that NOBODY should judge what other people read. I take that approach with my kids. If they find something they like to read and that is keeping them in their rooms with a book instead of begging for some kind of screen time, it doesn’t matter to me that it’s a graphic Star Wars novel, or something that my academic relatives would label as “trash” (as long as it’s age-appropriate!).
I love my Kindle because it lets me buy LOTS of books—novels, mysteries, and yes, ROMANCE. Not because I’m ashamed of my romance habit, but because I can buy lots of books at very little expense that don’t take up my limited shelf space. I’m a very fast reader. If I bought all the paper books that I can read in a year, I’d need a whole library wing to house my book collection in very short order.
I would like to see an article that gets similar attention about why romance reading is a good thing and that celebrates some of the truly good authors writing in this genre, and that dispels the myth that all romance readers are dried up spinsters with no sex life and lots of cats or something… I’m getting really tired of the “all romance is porn for women” articles and the ones about so-called stereotypical romance readers. Maybe there are articles like that that get published in mainstream publications and I just don’t know about them?? Don’t get me wrong, I love your post here, Sarah, but what about equivalent discussions in forums where the article is not “preaching to the choir”, if you know what I mean.
I was in B&N the other day, checking out the romance shelves, and buying a couple of debut romance authors. At the checkout desk the ‘dude-clerk’ began to pitch me on renewing my B&N discount card. It went something like this:
“Do you read a lot of this kind of fiction? Because I mean if you doāwe get women in here all the time that buy stacks of this stuffāand they save ten, fifteen bucks—eighty cents a book.” His pitch went on from there without the word romance ever being spoken out loud.
I thought about spewing out a few RWA stats. Romance fiction represents 13.4% of market share and $1.358 billion in sales, almost twice that of it’s second closest competitor, but the ‘dude-clerk’ already knew how popular romance books are, he had just said as much (without using the R word).
Needless to say I declined the discount card. As he bagged up my books I craned my neck to catch a glimpse of the romance section buried behind toys and games and thought, for years now these stores have been apologists for romance…I passed through the security doors of the store in a funk before another thought brightened: a Kindle Fire.
THANK YOU! Both to Sarah and Hannah. There’s no shame in loving romance novels, and I am a recent convert myself. I’m really careful about what I buy/check out in print because of the covers and I work in a school, and I already had one moment where a student questioned the reading material sticking out of my pocket. It’s not so much a matter of shame/secrecy as sometimes you have to be aware of your surroundings. And I don’t simply mean the narrow-minded fools who write trash like that quoted above.
I’ve had plenty of students ask me what I’m reading and blithely answered ‘Romance novel.’ Why must it be something shameful?
Years ago David Bianculli wrote a book called Teleliteracy, the basic premise of which was to argue against media snobbery. His point was that the best TV drama was as good as any movie (and often more accessible). This strikes me as the same issue different medium.
As an ex-English major and daughter of a librarian, this idea that good writing is only to be found in “classics” makes me insane. Can we remind everyone that Shakespere was the “brain candy” of his time?
Yes my Kindle is stuffed to the gills with Romances – BECAUSE I’VE RUN OUT OF SHELF SPACE! Not because my ashamed of what I read. I lent a friend an Elizabeth Lowell that she loved but was horrified to dicover that she’d have to go to the *gasp* romance section to buy more of them. AAARRRGGGHHHH!!!!!
I read everything and could care less what people about think of it. I am not ashamed I enjoy a good rousing bodice ripper or a story about rogue pirates holding heroine’s family hostage for ransom nookie. I’m lucky that my family and friends either don’t care or are smart enough to keep their opinions to themselves. I do keep more of my naughty romances on my e reader but only because I have a very, very curious child who likes to browse through mommy’s books. š
It’s quite bizarre, this judgy, dismissive, patronisingly snotty attitude towards “genre fiction” – which, as far as I can tell, means anything with a rocking story sure to hook the reader to the end. More people are reading – how can that possibly be a bad thing!
It’s also disgustingly hypocritical, because I have always read that genre fiction (and so-called “women’s fiction” in particular) is the backbone of the industry, and makes possible the publishing of the ever-lauded (ever read?) “literary” fiction and it’s attendant critics and commentators. The Guardian writer should thank his/her lucky stars for genre fiction, instead of being so despising, and despicable.
sorry: ” *its” attendant critics.”
Yup, we writers whose surnames are not Dickens or Austen can actually spell.
I figured the popularity of genre-fiction ebooks was because they’re rather devorative fiction and people often accumulate lots and LOTS of them (I’m not sure if the turnover is that high but I know that the genre fiction sections of a local used bookstore are very large), and the e-readers allow you to have lots and LOTS of them without overwhelming your shelf space… (Also a big hit if you have to move frequently for various reasons!)
I’m an admin at a university. I have an English degree. The faculty know this. I was chatting with one of the profs the other day, and she said she had just finished a Stephen King book and then apologized to ME for her “lowbrow” reading habits. I had to assure her that there was no way my lit degree interfered with my love of genre fiction. If anything, it made me love it more. I read a lot of good stuff in pursuit of an English major, but boy did I read a lot of stuff that contained more navel-gazing than I ever want to deal with again!
Sometimes what you want is a good story, and—more often than not—you’ll get glorious language along with that good story in genre fiction.
I think romance, fantasy, and horror all harken back to the epics we used to tell as an oral culture. As humans, we should still want stories like Beowulf and the Arthurian romances (in the Medieval meaning) with larger than life characters and fantastic situations. I can enjoy the language in a story about an Iranian woman in a terrible marriage, but really…that’s the sort of thing that happens next door. That’s not entertainment. That just makes me feel helpless and lacking in hope. I don’t want my books to do that to me.
So I wrote a romance novel over NaNoWriMo. When you tell people you wrote a book in a month they’re impressed. When you tell the, it was a romance novel, you can see them subtly start judging you. But I have found some unlikely defenders—a guy I play an MMO with spent all of November and December discussing plot points with me and one of my more intellectual male friends gave me the argument that romance is really just a spiritual successor to the comedic tradition of Shakespeare and Aristophanes where the entire point of the play was to end on a happy note. Plus when you say that nobody wants to admit they don’t know that much about ancient Greek comedy so it usually ends the debate.
It’s not the genre….its the (often) cheezy covers that have me buying more ebooks. But ashamed of my romance reading – NEVER!! Now, back to Untamed by Elizabeth Lowell (so good!).
Part of the problem in finding coverage that examines the authors writing solid romance, and examining why romance reading is a good thing is that those topics are, to be blunt, of less interest. Add to that sexism and a very solidly-entrenched “romance is porn for women” cliche, and getting attention to point out the contrary to any romance-negative article is difficult.
Case in point: the Quilliam article which cautioned that romance readers are less likely to use condoms because condom usage doesn’t feature in contemporary romance, was picked up by news outlets around the freaking world. Articles pointing out the complete bullcrapitude of her research were not as well-circulated, because Romance Is Popular And Bad For You! is “man bites dog.” Romance is popular, it sells well, and the women who read and write it are pretty smart is “dog bites man.”
NPR’s Linda Holmes read the research the Quilliam article was based on and highlighted the true idiocy of basing her conclusions on novels that were 30+ years old and written prior to the AIDS crisis, but that didn’t get much pickup from major news outlets, to my eternal dismay. The article was circulated among those who were already pissed off at the idiocy, but, as you say, that’s the choir talking to itself.
There have been several articles about the benefits of romance and the positive aspects of enjoying it, though, especially in the last six months.
It irks me that the entire romance genre is viewed as “downmarket”. Yeah, there’s a lot of shite out there—but I’ve also read my share of shite highbrow ‘literary’ fiction where the author wouldn’t know a topic sentence if it bit him/her in the arse and couldn’t develop/move a plot if it came with already-greased tyres and a roadmap. Most romances are rife with character development, emotional tension, tight writing, and all those things that generally constitute a “good story”— but, oooh, there’s generally some hot (and frequent!) sex, so let’s hate on it because it corrupts the moral fibre of our society. Seriously, if more people read books with HEAs, maybe more people would read!
I admit to being one of those people who enjoys my Kindle because I can read whatever I want (chiefly romances—some historicals, many contemporaries, but primarily RS—though I do have many of the classics loaded up on it, read thrillers, etc.) anywhere, any time without anyone patronising me. I read everywhere—in lab in between experiments, when I travel, on the tube, at the gym walking down the street—and have gotten plenty of looks for being out there with a romance novel. I graduated summa cum laude with a science degree from university, I’m getting my doctorate from that famed bastion of American tertiary education… clearly, I have a brain and love romances, so the idea that that they’re for idiots is just insulting. I’ve even gotten my mum hooked on them!
My Kindle not only helps me avoid such bigotry, but it’s also enabled me to read so much more (no need to worry about where in the tiny flat I keep print books!) that I was reading previously. I read over 100 books in 2011. So more power to eReaders, and those wankers who love to hate on our reading preferences and behaviour under a thin cloak of “journalism” [I have journalist friends; I refuse to call that shite actual journalism] can just go shag themselves.
There were a couple of good ones as a result of Lauren Willig and Cara Elliott teaching a seminar on romance at Yale in 2010. It wasn’t very widely reported, though, unfortunately.
I know exactly what you mean! I tell people I am a novelist and they get all excited, I mention romance and they always say something like “Oh, I hear there’s a lot of money in that.” or some such. As if I only write it for the money, rather than the love of the genre. I write damn good books, I get great reviews, yet most people look askance at my output as though I was Dow Chemical and the literary world was my dump site. It drives me nuts.
It isn’t so much that I’m embarrassed to read romances, because I’m not. It was more that I did sometimes feel embarrassed by the covers, most of which seemed to be made to appeal to men looking for porn rather than women wishing to read. And rarely had much to do with the contents and/or characters of the book. It is why I used bookcovers before digital.
People should be happy people are reading no matter what the genre is. I started reading historical romance books at 12 and my parents were thrilled because I was actually reading in my free time and not just watching tv all night. I struggled with English in middle school, but when I started reading I slowly started picking my grades up in it. So since I loved reading romance novels I got a better understanding of grammar/spelling/reading comprehension. š
Oddly enough, you never get people going up to men who are reading a men’s genre action-adventure in public and asking them how they can read that crap! Hmmm….
This might be a case of reverse snobbery on my part, but I truly wonder about the intelligence of people who must rely on high-brow literature as their (only?) source of intellectualism in life.
Genre fiction is intelligent, no doubt. But it’s also escapist literature. It allows us readers to engage with issues in a more abstract way, removed from our own lives and inevitably biased worldviews. The ability to empathize with situations and circumstances that are not our own is no small thing. That’s not to say that literary fiction and classics grounded in the real aren’t valuable. It’s to say they are all valuable.
But my point is that life is freakin’ hard and full possible intellectual pursuits if you open yourself up to them. None of the genre readers I know are idiots. Most of them spend their time doing things that are much more intellectual than reading a book. I’ve always read widely, but it wasn’t until my mom got me hooked on Jennifer Crusie and Janet Evanovich that I was able to enjoy reading and feel refreshed by it, while surviving grad school.
Personally, I’ll pit my PhD and career in HIV research, sullied as it may be from my love of paranormal romance, over the intellectualism of a journalist who writes silly articles that are completed constrained to her own small worldview any day. For anyone who still feels the sting from the romance-bashing in the article, it’s worth checking out the same journalist’s all-about-me opinion piece on abortion in which she compares her pro-life beliefs to her love of dolphins: http://www.scribd.com/doc/3378…
It’s guaranteed to make anyone who reads it feel better about their own intellectual abilities…
“…I’m happier reading it on an e-reader, and keeping shelf space for books that proclaim my cleverness…”
Me thinks the lady (?) who keepeth books on yonder shelf to proclaim her cleverness, has not actually read them. Had she done so, she might have learned some things, one of which is that she is not so very clever after all.
I actually have the OPPOSITE problem. I DO NOT download ebooks to reader b/c my kids also use it. I can easier stuff a book into my closet or under my mattress so I don’t have to explain, “mommy, why is that woman falling out of her dress? And why is that man biting her on the neck?” š
I’ve often wondered if the embarrassment some women are made to feel for reading romantic fiction is some kind of cultural cousin for the shame some women STILL feel (yes, in 2012) for their sensuality and sexual needs.
Also, I figure the literati need to promulgate the negative attitude toward romantic fiction and genre fiction in general. Why? Because if readers weren’t shamed into buying so-called “literature,” it might not sell at all.
Awesome post. Shared it on my end of the Interwebs.
I LOVE this post! Seriously, there’s been some romance bashing going on (I think the offending blog post went up about 1,5-2 weeks ago) and I was so angry! I’m not really open about my love of romance novels in real life because of the stereotypical reactions. It’s not that I’m embarassed, I just get tired of hearing the same thing over and over again. And yes, I’m more comfortable reading them on my e-reader, but not because I think they’re unworthy fiction or other nonsense like that. I will however admit that the covers can be somewhat embarassing, but that’s about as far as I’ll go.
I have been very lucky that I’ve never been “shamed” by anyone, but I also am not ashamed of what I read, so it would be awesome if someone tried.
Just a couple days ago, I was waiting outside my son’s preschool, while another mom sat nearby. We both were reading, and she struck up a conversation about my Nook. So I asked what she was reading, and once she was done telling me that “A Child Called It” (which I’ve read) was a wonderful book, but she was really having a hard time, I held up my Nook and said “And that’s why I love Romances, happy endings for all!” We chatted a bit longer and when we met up again today she held up a copy of my book. Her comment was that she hadn’t read a romance in a long time, and wanted something “happy” after ACCI,so she found mine. How awesome is that? We can read and enjoy any kind of literature or genre, as long as we are reading. And that’s the point I’ve seen others making-who cares what someone is reading AS LONG AS HE/SHE IS READING!
My 4 year old son is a reader. My 7 year old daughter is a reader. Even my husband, who never reads unless he has to, has been asking me to pick up books for him lately. He read The Road, and asked me to read it with him. I may have not enjoyed it like he did, but anything to encourage reading, right?
The books that go on my shelves are the ones I re-read 7,8,9 or 10 times and have VERY pretty covers. The ones that go on the e-reader are ones that I sorta wanted to read but maybe in my spare time. Has nothing to do with shame. Has everything to do with how well I LIKE the story. Will I make room for it on the precious shelf space? Or will it be e-only?
BTW… what book was she talking about where an elf boinked (or bonked… WHICH ONE OMG?!?!?!) the troll. I wish to read this winsome tome.
Saw the link to this article on Twitter last night and ground my teeth down a little bit more.
My family loves me unconditionally. They are so proud of me for having published a couple romances. They themselves read mystery, thrillers, and tear-jerking lit fic among other genres. And yet some of them STILL ask me when I’m gonna write the Next Great American Novel. It’s so frustrating that “merely” loving the story isn’t enough to make it worthy.
From the article: “My own downmarket literary fetish is male-oriented historical fiction (histfic). Swords and sails stuff. I’m happier reading it on an e-reader, and keeping shelf space for books that proclaim my cleverness.”
*Snerk* Really? So apparently Antonia Senior, the article’s author, is still in high school, trying desperately to impress the cool literary kids.
What a twit.
I often wonder whether people like this, who proclaim the superiority of classics over genre fiction, have read much of either. Certainly anyone clutching their pearls in horror at the masses reading about vampires seducing virgins, has not read Dracula. (Or seen any movie version of it.)
If I got an ereader it would probably be mostly filled with genre fiction. Not because I’m ashamed of it, but because the books that have stuck with me, that I love to reread, that I’d like to have at my fingertips at all times, they’re mostly genre fiction. (So, are large portions of my bookshelves. And the random stacks of books sitting around because I ran out of shelf space.)
Agh my head is spinning although its not just the article. I read it and all I could get out of it at first is “hey there books where “elves bonk trolls”?” No judgment intended just its not something I’ve read. Any recommendations?
Second when I read the actual article I was seriously bummed by how despite her claims that everyone just reads smut; she disparages Christian books a lot. As someone who reads both secular but also a little Inspirational from time to time, that hurt. We’re reading smut, except, “God help us” Christian fiction is 16%.”
In general this article makes me angry. People should be allowed to read what they want to read.
Also fear of judgment isn’t shame. I hide what I read from say my f-book friends because its none of their business and if they said something mean what would come of it?I am not ashamed of reading romance. I just don’t want to hear what people have to say. What I read is my business. My stupid extended family who tends to judge doesn’t make me ashamed; they make defensive, unhappy, and annoyed. But I only see them once year and I can do what I like.
I have a confession: I pretty much hide ALL of my books (except cookbooks). Low-brow, high-brow, fiction, non-fictionātheyāre all under wraps. When I used to take the train, Iād always hide what I was reading, even if it was the same popular mystery that everyone else was reading. And no one is allowed to look at my Kindle/Fire/iPad. Ever. Iām introverted and have, I guess, an excess of secrecy (yeah, there are probably meds for that, so feel free to stage an intervention). And part might be because I just donāt want to have to talk to the personāwhether I know them or notāwho wants to chat to me while Iām reading. Them: āWhatcha reading?ā Me: āA book.ā Them: āIs it any good?ā Me: āNo, Iām reading a bad book.ā Them: āI read a really good book last year.ā Me: āPlease shoot me.ā
I didnāt come from a family of readers (but theyāre getting better, mostly due to Kindle), and have very few friends who read. Anything. At all. Zilch. Nada. So I guess Iāve become used to not talking about reading/books. Like itās Susanās weird little habit, even worse than if I smoked or swallowed my own hair.
That said, I donāt have a problem buying any kind of book in a store, and I rarely get anything but a positive attitude from the sales staff (who Iām more than happy to talk to about my selections). If theyāre selling it and Iām buying it, that can only be good for both of us. And I donāt get judge-y about other peopleās reading choices. Just the fact that someoneās reading something/anything is a bonus right there.
Just ātalkingā to everyone here is a big step for me. Maybe Iāll learn to be more outgoing about all of my reading in āreal life,ā too. Someday.
I love reading romance, and several sub-genres at that. I grew up reading SF/F and hunted for those with romantic subplots, graduating to romance when I discovered that books focused on the relationship existed. I am still amazed at the number of people who look down their noses at what others read.
When my oldest son was at a stage where he HATED reading, he discovered Harry Potter. That book showed him the magic of reading, and he’s been a reader since. I cannot tell you how many parents were appalled that I encouraged him to read such a book, either because it was poorly written or had witchcraft and sorcery in it.
The last time I had a conversation about genre reading with a couple of women, they both had a problem with reading ‘smut’ romances, because there was just ‘no value’ in such books. Yet they had no problem with reading thrillers with on-page violence, blood, gore, and fierce language. As long as there was no sex…::sigh::
Amen. A. Frickin’. Men. I thought my head would explode when I read that article, and I’m so glad to find the Bitchery weighing in on it.
I started reading romance in earnest when I was in college, and I had to conceal it because I was . . . an English major. Something like ‘Agnes and the Hitman’ or ‘Nice Girls Don’t Have Fangs’ was considered unsophisticated, plebeian, and supposedly rotted my brain. Genre fiction in general was hardly treated better: about half my class wanted to write adventure stories, monster stories, detective stories, but there was no one teaching it and we got sneered at. Today, almost four years later, I still have an instinctive twitch when I read in public because I’m afraid of being judged.
I don’t want to be ashamed—and I’m not ashamed of the books themselves, or of the wonderful authors who tell so many incredible stories. I guess I’m ashamed of letting myself be shamed? But it’s hard to flip that instinct off.
I read romance and am not ashamed of that fact. And yes I own an e-reader and oh my God it’s not because I’m ashamed of what I read. I will tell anyone who asks me what it is that I read. Romance is not the only genre that I read but it is the one that I reach for the most. I write romance. You should see the looks that I get when people ask me what I write and I say romance.
I can’t help it…I judge when I see you reading ‘Twilight.’ But I do it silently and I chastise myself afterwards and am grateful that at least you read something other than tweets and texts. (Sorry….bad days make me respond with flippancy.)
I think I’ll go fix my facebook page to make sure the Romance lover/writer stuff is upfront. I’m a face of Romance and proud to say so.
I want to thank everyone here! If it were not for you guys I would probably not be reading romance any more. Often times I won’t advertise that I read romance, but because of the acceptance I found here, I am not ashamed of what I read. Again, Thanks, to the amazingly smart and wonderfully brilliant Bitchery.
(ducks)
Yes, everything SB Sarah said is right. I am embarrassed when ‘caught’ reading romance because of the reputation, not the content (okay, and some of those covers have GOT to go).
But I will also say that I have seen more downright-awful writing in the romance genre than in any other. I have also seen the best writing (certified best by me, Anony Miss, BA in English) in the romance genre – but when it’s bad, oh lordy lordy, it’s really heinously bad.
THAT, however, is a function of the publishers’ lower standards, perhaps, than a fundamental flaw in romance itself. The fact they think people will put up with any plot for the sake of some explicit noogie.