I asked this question on Bluesky a bit ago, and was enchanted with all the answers (and all the covers).
What romance novel could you do a 10 minute presentation on with no warning?
Vintage old skool romances welcome!
When I first posted this back in September 2024, I thought it would be Midsummer Magic by Catherine Coulter, ( A | BN | K | G | AB ) the first romance I read, and one that “lives in the inside foyer of my brain, ready to be called upon.”
The arranged marriage, the absolute mismatch of the cover copy and the story itself, THE CREAM. Seriously, the use of a form of lube – one of the first instances I’d seen in romance, ever, and this was in the early 90s – really imprinted on my tender, naive brain. It indicated both a sense of regard if not caring from Phillip, the hero, who didn’t want to be in the marriage any more than Frances did. (This is the one where she disguises herself as a dowdy bluestocking to avoid said marriage. It didn’t work, obviously.)
The hero is rapey, but also aware of female signs of arousal, and doesn’t want to hurt her. Blew my mind when I read it.
But now that I’ve had some time to think about it, and now that I’ve come up with Nefarious Plans, I think I’d probably do 10 minutes on the value placed on home management skills in Devil’s Bride by Stephanie Laurens, and Born in Ice by Nora Roberts.
(Sidenote: the first in the Born In trilogy, Born in Fire, features a hero I think of as proto-Roarke.)
Devil’s Bride is the one where Devil, as is the case with all the Cynsters, is obsessed with marriage and family, and tries to convince Honoria, whom he inadvertently compromised, that they’re getting married. (Honoria: Nope.) (Devil: Yes, we are, have you not noticed I’m a duke and I get my way a lot?) (Honoria: Still no.)
But when he brings her to his family seat after they’ve been discovered, the household has to go into high gear to prepare to receive everyone for a funeral. There are, to put it mildly, A LOT of Cynsters. Honoria pitches in – there’s a line about “lists, and derived lists for cross-checking,” and let me tell you how much I identified with Honoria in that moment. I wrote a whole essay about it: “Organized Caretaking: A Brief Love Letter to Honoria Anstruther-Weatherby.”
That same level of organized caretaking is present in Brianna, who runs a bed and breakfast in Ireland. She grew up in a cold and loveless home with a volatile mother, and even in the cover copy, it says, “Brianna Concannon is a woman with a rare gift for creating a home.”
I could most definitely do a 10 minute presentation on either or both as examples of valuing the emotional and physical labor of maintaining a home for people.
I asked the SBTB reviewers, and got some really interesting responses.
Claudia: I think I am the resident expert on later Meredith Duran books! Especially Luck Be a Lady and Sins of Lord Lockwood!
Luck Be a Lady is tricky because it’s bad boy/crime lord hero and my opinions have shifted yet I still kinda like him, LOL. So I guess the presentation would be about learning your gaps in understanding and reconciling loving a problematic book or main characters.
Also a study on the role the Antipodes have played in romance, with a homage to The Count of Monte Cristo. That’s for Sins of Lord Lockwood.
Carrie: Bet Me by Jennifer Cruise because it is peak banter, has equal focus on male and female arcs, speaks to my personal struggles with body image, and features people who are total equals and who stand up for one another in the best ways.
Best of all at the end we find out not only the fates of the main characters but also their found family friends – and in that section multiple different kinds of happy endings are explored including staying single, which is given as much validation as all the romantic pairings. Also the main character starts the book not wanting kids and ends the book not wanting kids, and not having kids, and this is presented as a completely valid option.
Shana: Better Off Red by Rebekah Weatherspoon. I will talk to anyone who shows the slightest curiosity about my favorite lesbian vampire sorority book. It’s just so entertaining and camp and fun. And every time I’ve seen Weatherspoon at book events, I ask if I’m getting another book in the series.
So, what about you? What romance could you give a spontaneous 10 minute presentation about, and why?
Special note: If you’re a member of After Dark, I’m going to arrange presentation nights for us on Zoom, where we will actually give these presentations live, most likely with beverages hot and possibly strong. I’m definitely going to do one, and Amanda is on board, so if you think you’d like to tell us 10 minutes of your deep thoughts on a particular romance novel, stay tuned for that! And if you’re not in After Dark, you can join!
Probably The Blue Castle by Lucy Maud Montgomery? That’s one of my favourite Valentine’s Day comfort rereads. There’s a lot to talk about, including how I HATE the ending and also how Cissy deserved better.
If you’re a member of After Dark, I’m going to arrange presentation nights for us on Zoom, where we will actually give these presentations live
I joined After Dark to support a site and community I value, but this? Holy cow, take all my moneys. I can’t wait to see these presentations.
I’m all about pattern analysis, so the romance dissertation that lives in my head is “The Use of Recycled Themes and Characters in the Works of Jayne Ann Krentz, 1979-1999.” I particularly loved how Krentz leveraged subgenres (category romance, single-title contemporary, historical, fantasy, paranormal) to refresh her formula.
If I had to choose just one book, it would be Family Man, which is peak JAK and gets me tangled in knots over romance and feminism and escapism and paradox. To give an example: the FMC’s stated ambition at the start of the book is “to be free of Gilchrists” (a goal emphasized by both her brother and her coworker/secretary), but the HEA traps her in her pivotal role in the Gilchrist family forever because Luke is now the head of the family and you just know every Gilchrist is going to try to get Katie to influence him.
I could rant for ten minutes about things I learned about myself reading Ruby Dixon’s Fire in Her Dreams. The first is that post apocalyptic absolutely does not work for me as a romance setting. The second is that while I don’t approve of censorship in the abstract, that there are some books that could change my mind.
The third thing might be that I will keep going with a book just to see how bad things will get, but if I’m honest, I already knew that about myself.
Nine Rules To Break When Romancing A Rake is by far the one I’ve read the most and always open when I need a good comfort read. I literally could go on and on about the structure, the tasks, the emotional arcs for the protagonists, and the antics. So. Many. Antics. It’s everything I love about historical romance
Lord of Scoundrels
I discovered it late in it’s life (about 5 years ago) but it feels like such an Ur-romance and it’s full of trope perfection and Jessica is such a BAMF without sacrificing any part of herself. God I love her
Slightly Dangerous by Mary Balogh.
“AND THEN IT TURNS OUT HE WON THE BET ON HOW BIG THE BABY WOULD BE AFTER SHE WENT INTO LABOR IN THE CHECKOUT LINE” – me, in tears, giving a presentation in the style of that gif where the guy has all the lines of string re: Key of Valor by Nora Roberts
I suspect not many will have heard of this book, but I could -this minute- give a presentation on Louann Gaeddert’s Perfect Strangers, despite not having read it for decades. I first read it in one of my mom’s magazines. Something in that story touched my heart. I had no idea it was in a category of fiction called Romance, and never thought to look for additional, similar books.
@Susan: I am also cry laughing. That’s hilarious!
Bear Meets Girl by Shelly Laurenston. First of hers books that I read. Awesome!! Also A Study in Scarlet Women by Sherry Thomas.
Kathleen Woodiwiss, SHANA. Yep. Totally old skool crazy sauce. Fun fact, the BFF and I were watching Outlander in separate locations. The phone rings. I pick it up and we say at the exact same time “We’ve been pronouncing Ruark’s name wrong!”. Which is what happens when you’ve been friends for half a century and read the same books.
YA, but L.J. Smith’s The Night World series (which is still not complete) I had all the 90s fabulous mass market paperbacks as a kid, and recently repurchased them all as an adult (shout out to ThriftBooks!)
My personal favorite is still SECRET VAMPIRE, where Poppy gets diagnosed with cancer and then saved by being turned by her bff James, who’s a born vs made vampire. Friends to lovers, faking(?) your death, secret relationship? So much catnip.
OK, you guys have to stop the book listing immediately! I have been adding and adding to my re-read/first read pile til I’m in danger of an avalanche. I love how you give me insights into “new” books or remind me how much I liked certain books.
Though I don’t think I’ll forgive C for bringing to my attention Rudy Dixon’s crazy sauce post-apocalyptic dragon romance. Query: why did they want to collect women’s worn panties?
ACOTAR – really anything in the Maasverse. Lord of Scoundrels, my absolute fave Loretta Chase; Pride and Prejudice, my favorite Austen; Sunshine, by Robin McKinley; and most definitely Devil’s Cub, featuring my absolute favorite bad boy Heyer MMC. I usually read library books on my Kindle, but these books I actually own. These are the books I reread often and would want on a desert island. Given how things are going lately, I’ll probably be picking them all up soon.
This reminds me of something Henry James said about one of his heroines (Isabel Archer? Daisy Miller): he felt as if he knew her so well he could take a very detailed exam about her. I could go all the way back to the great-grandmother of romantic historical fiction: Anya Seton’s KATHERINE, a brilliant evocation of medieval England. Newer books I could talk ad infinitum about with no preparation: Kati Wilde’s GOING NOWHERE FAST; Cara McKenna’s AFTER HOURS; Ann Calhoun’s LIBERATING LACEY; Jill Sorensen’s RIDING DIRTY; Taylor Fitzpatrick’s THROWN OFF THE ICE; Cait Nary’s SEASON’S CHANGE; KD Casey’s UNWRITTEN RULES; and (a very new addition to the list) Ari Baran’s GOALTENDER INTERFERENCE. Like Henry James, I believe I could take a pretty detailed exam about any of these books.
I could do a presentation on Devil’s Cub and Elizabeth Hoyt’s To Seduce a Sinner, which is my favorite of her books. And these are a little bit obscure, but so much the better: The Spy’s Bride and The Spy’s Reward by Nita Abrams. The hero in the first one is the son of the hero in the second one, and it’s rare to read Regencies with Jewish heroes.
Oh oh oh! I have been savoring with very small bites the annotated original manuscript of The Blue Castle since its release last year (https://www.amazon.com/Blue-Castle-Original-Manuscript/dp/177471275X). And then I can compare and contrast it to Colleen McCullough’s The Ladies of Missalonghi, an interesting retelling/adaptation. Neither of which I have fully reread in at least four years.
My short list:
The romantic arc of Miles Vorkosigan in Komarr, A Civil Campaign, and the novella “Winterfair Gifts” by Lois McMaster Bujold. Although I have to include Memory, too, because it sets up how Miles is finally ready to truly start adulting.
Summers at Castle Auburn by Sharon Shinn (and her Samaria books would be another presentation)
While I could do a reasonable job with the Born in series from Nora Roberts, too, my top choice would be Face the Fire from her Three Sisters Island Trilogy. Cause, really, all three books in the trilogy are going to be discussed to some level if you discuss one.
Dorothy Sayers’ Busman’s Honeymoon, starring Harriet Vane and Lord Peter Wimsey. But again the whole relationship arc is going to be referenced starting with Strong Poison. (“But, by the way, you’re bearing in mind, aren’t you, that I’ve had a lover?” “Oh, yes. So have I, if it comes to that. In fact, several. It’s the sort of thing that might happen to anybody. I can produce quite good testimonials. I’m told I make love rather nicely—only I’m at a disadvantage at the moment. One can’t be very convincing at the other end of a table with a bloke looking in at the door.”)
Lessons in Chemistry trilogy by Penny Reid, tied with her two Ninja books featuring Fiona and Greg actually.
The Happy Ever After Playlist by Abby Jimenez and the portrayal of grief and moving on to a new relationship.
What I Did for a Duke by Julie Anne Long. Overall, I prefer the Palace of Rogues series (SQUEE!) but I have the strong feels for my favorite Pennyroyal, too.
And Lisa Kleypas, of course. I could throw a dart at most of hers and come up with something. I would probably pick the Hathaways–but Amelia, Win, Poppy, or Beatrix? Beatrix and the squirrels!
Ditto Mary Balogh, but most likely from the Slightly, aka Bedwyn, books although I’d probably go with A Summer to Remember, my first Balogh. Could do a decent job with the the Huxtable series’ First Comes Marriage, too.
From last year, The Most Wonderful Crime of the Year by Ally Carter. Just on how well it is crafted alone. I was thoroughly enjoying it and then awing over its construction, too, which I usually can’t do both simultaneously very well.
and oh so many more but I have to work now…
The Winston Brothers series by Penny Reid. Give me any kind of slant and I’ll present on it: how to turn truly off the wall, unhinged situations into plausible plot lines; a brief history of this Knitting in the City series’ spinoff eclipsing the original series; the use of easter eggs and clever call backs; how to do character development across long arcs and multiple volumes well; the details that build the world w/o it being overtly worldbuild-y; Reid’s stated goal of subverting stereotypes and whether/how-well she does it; business presentation on how this series really drove Reid’s publishing business growth.
If you count Pride and Prejudice, I could do a Ted Talk.
For me it would most likely be THE TALISMAN RING, my favorite Heyer, or WHEN HE WAS WICKED, my favorite Julia Quinn. Also possibly HEARTSTONE by Elle Katherine White, which is basically a YA version of PRIDE AND PREJUDICE with dragons, and one of my big comfort reads.
Devil in Winter by Lisa Kleypas. Still my all-time favorite book!
I frequently find myself monologuing about What I Did For A Duke by Julie Anne Long in empty rooms and random bus stops. It happened again just two days ago, actually, as I was walking to my office. It also weirdly always seems to end with an emphatic “That bastard!”
Definitely always and forever The Windflower. Like I said on Bluesky: one minute on Devon and Merry, the remaining nine minutes on Cat. Also, honestly, I could do ten minutes that’s nothing more than dramatic readings of excerpts in which Things That Shouldn’t Be Horny Are Inexplicably Horny.
Crazy for You by Jennifer Cruise. The perfect plot, perfect characters, the growth and humor…. This book, to me, is a masterclass in writing.
As much as I love the book for being everything I want in a romance, it’s everything I want as a writer. The secondary characters have story arcs and growth, the most absurd of the secondary stories has the best twist (the parents with their surprising acceptance of each other’s quirks and sexuality) and the slow disintegration of the nice guy into a scary guy.
There is no book as special to me as this one.
@HAT, did you do that Strong Poison quote from memory, or did you have to reference the book?
It also reminded me, I can give a talk on Nothing Venture, by Patricia Wentworth. She wrote mostly cozy mystery, but this one is romantic suspense, really the most romantic of all her books.
I would be soooo bad at this. I remember trying to explain to my 9th grade honors English teacher why I loved Tolkien and becoming completely entangled with plot points and superficialities. I still remember the feelings of frustration and acute embarrassment when I was unable to convey how purely wonderful I considered Tolkien’s books. I don’t know if I could present on even a much loved romance now without some advance prep.
My first choice of a topic would probably be Trust Me by Jayne Ann Krentz. This is a book I read annually and recommend every chance I get. I consider this a perfect balance of romance, mystery, and comedy. My TED Talk would focus on how Krentz uses the conventions of genre to reconstruct the concept of family in multiple contexts.
Actually, I have an informal theory that the central structure on which most romance is hung is the framework of family rather than emotional or sexual relationships between individuals. I’ve always wanted to examine Nora Roberts’s work through this lens, e.g., comparing and contrasting the elements and meaning of family between the In Death series and–say–the Chesapeake series. Of course, that would definitely require major prep.
@Karin I had to find the quote. Because it was going to distract me until I did.
My husband isn’t a reader but he watches the series with Harriet Walter as Harriet Vane and Edward Petherbridge as Lord Peter at least a few times a year. I join him about once a year on a rewatching. Not perfect but good enough for us to share a mutual adoration of the characters. I will always be bitter that Busman’s Honeymoon wasn’t filmed with the same actors. Stupid movie rights…
And then there’s the Jill Paton Walsh sequels, of course. Adequate…
I belong to an online trivia league (Learned League) and between seasons, members can submit one-day specials. I just had one two weeks ago on Bridgerton — the TV series, the book series, and the differences between the two. I wrote it from my own obsessive knowledge, so I could definitely do a 10-minute (or 60-minute) talk on that one. On the other hand, my ADHD brain apparently wrote that the three Featherington sisters that were in the show were Prudence, PORTIA, and Penelope, and I only realized it after publishing (in spite of multiple rereads), so I’d definitely screw something up. (Also, Julia Quinn’s cousin apparently sent it to her, and while, OMG, she read it, and that’s the coolest thing ever, I also wish I could let her know that I know Portia’s the mom, Philippa’s the sister!)
I am quite eager to write a close read (or do a presentation, whichever) of Alexis Hall’s book Something Fabulous, because I remain convinced that Hall is doing something very interesting in how he handled questions of privilege, identity, harm, accountability and relationship in this book, and I want someone to write a paper about this, so that I can read it.
And I want this paper to include some examination of the content of the 1-star reviews that the book receives, which I feel are indicative of dominant discourses about how “unfair” it is to hold people with power accountable for their unintentional but still significant acts of harm. Hall’s characters hold Valentine accountable for harms that are not his fault because he was, in most cases, just completely ignorant of identities beyond dominant cis het allosexual experience because he had never encountered any that he knew of (and in one case because he was flailing around in fear and hurt someone).
Valentine is quite strongly coded neurodivergent, and explicitly in-text demisexual, and so he’s sitting in this very particular intersection of profound structural power as an extremely wealthy white duke, while also inhabiting these other marginalized identities (gay, demisexual, probably neurodivergent). The complexity of this is handled in really interesting ways, where his marginalized identities might explain his harmful actions but they do not excuse or erase the effects of those actions.
And while he is held accountable, he is never ‘canceled’ or exiled from relationship (except with Belle, which I think is its own really interesting thing, and I could talk for another 10 pages / minutes / whatever about how that character develops in Something Extraordinary, and how Valentine’s continued cluelessness but increased empathy is represented in that book).
In Something Fabulous, he still gets his Happy Ever After with Bonny, he still gets the joy and community that he didn’t even know he was missing, but it requires him to take responsibility for the effects of his actions and make efforts to do better going forward. And I think it’s brilliant! Especially in a book that is so silly and over-the-top and irreverent! This is not a Very Serious Examination of Privilege, this is an extremely silly send-up of historical romance tropes, with this examination of privilege, accountability, harm, and repair (!!) happening in the background! I love it! Maybe I want to write this paper myself? Probably. But will I? Should I? Unlikely. But I want this paper to exist, and I think about it a lot.
(Most of the text of this comment is from a very long email I sent to a bunch of friends. I think about this all the time. Allllllll the time.)
Roan Parrish’s IN THE MIDDLE OF SOMEWHERE is one of the few books I’ve read more than once. Rex and Daniel are opposites in almost every way and it’s a (steamy, frustrating, angsty, sweet) journey to realizing that they complement each other perfectly.
SHANNA (Woodiwiss) — delicious, old school madness
THE SPYMASTER’S LADY (Bourne) — the perfect historical and the start to the perfect historical series
HEATED RIVALRY (R. Reid) — best hockey romance
ACT LIKE IT (Parker)
WELCOME TO TEMPTATION and FAKING IT (Crusie) — bad sex to best sex
ALMOST A HUSBAND (Thomas) — another amazing historical
UNLOCKED (Milan) — the perfect novella
A DUKE BY DEFAULT (Cole) — my fave in an awesome series
MR. IMPOSSIBLE and LORD PERFECT (Chase) — the best of the Carsingtons!
WHAT I DID FOR A DUKE (Long) — my fave Pennyroyal Green
BEARD WITH ME (P. Reid) — Billy Winston, be still my heart
I think mine would have to be Once a Princess by Johanna Lindsey. It was the first romance I ever read, and furious Googling years later to try and remember the title first brought me to SBTB. I think I would focus both on how absolutely old school crazy sauce it is, and on fictional kingdoms in historical romance in general.
I could also do a presentation about Johanna Lindsey’s Malory family and just how egregious the errors are about the nature of aristocrats. The books have their moments, but they are crazy sauce for so many reasons.
Nobody’s Baby But Mine, by Susan Elizabeth Phillips. I could discourse that long just on the abuse of a helpless, innocent cereal box (yes, it’s *that* one).
I would have to choose two favorite comfort reads: Night Play by Sherrilyn Kenyon and Just the Sexiest Man Alive by Julie James.
@bailsandherbooks I am STILL bitter about the 25 year delay on that last book! As much as I like the Nightworld, I think the Forbidden Game trilogy is my favorite, with Secret Vampire and a couple others in the series being close seconds.
I’m very tempted to write a presentation in defense of Bella Swan. I hated how she was compared unfavorably to Hermione Granger. I love both characters but I bet Hermione would have sounded super whiny if the story had been told from her POV.
Mine would be either AJ Demas’s Saffron Alley, or Ada Maria Soto’s Agents books.
FLOWERS FROM THE STORM by Laura Kinsale – my secret, guilty pleasure from my high school days in the mid-90s. I found my copy of the book (with Fabio!) in a box in my parent’s basement in 2007 and was thrilled! It wasn’t until then that I thought to see if she had written anything else, so I did some searching on the internet and came across a little website doing lightning reviews of all Kinsale’s novels. And that is how I found the Bitchery. 🙂
@HAT mentions doing a presentation of Miles Vorkosigan’s romantic life. I would co-present on his role as an agent of chaos and positive change on the lives of so many people. First he crashes into their lives and upends them. But by the time he leaves, they are in a better place (they usually level up big time directly because of him).
Nora Roberts, the O’Hurley’s. The Last Honest Woman, Dance to the Piper, Skin Deep and Without a Trace. How the dynamics of a traveling show business family impacted all of the children (older brother and three female triplets) and led them to their respective careers & love interests.
I also would go with The Blue Castle. I read it every year and I love everything about it.
Her time on the island is my dream come true. Rambling through the woods every day and reading books or just doing nothing. So lovely.