Since I write erotic romance, this topic from Long and Short Reviews was an interesting one. I was never a reader of romance until I began to write it, primarily because I grew up in the era of the too-stupid-to-live heroine, which frankly put me off. I'm very glad that these days we're getting strong, intelligent heroines who are capable of living their lives without constantly having to be rescued by men.
My favourite element of romance is, of course, the happy ending. Unless you're reading Nicholas Sparks, happy endings are a given with romance and - in spite of the fact that I also enjoy horror, which is famous for having nasty endings - I do love it when a love story ends happily. I read quite a lot of fanfiction in the past where they tried to subvert expectations by throwing in an unexpected sad ending, and it always led me to refuse to read any more of that person's stories.
There are, however, two things I hate about the genre. One is "tears before bedtime", which is unfortunately necessary to keep the plot going, but I always hate it when the hero and heroine are parted by something that could have easily been resolved if they talked to each other. I usually try to twist things by having a different type of conflict point, such as in "Photograph" where my heroine got shot right after fighting with her sister.
The other is a trope that I always avoid in my writing, which probably has a name but I'll call it "How dare you be a virgin!" I've seen this pop up in a lot of books, where the tough guy hero has sex with the virginal heroine and is utterly shocked and horrified to discover he's deflowered her. How dare she not tell him this first! Now she's going to have Expectations! Ugh! As a result, my heroines are never virgins and my heroes never ask these sorts of questions as it simply isn't important how many people she's slept with.
And while I'm here, I can't resist announcing my new release, "Making It Hard".
He wants her. She wants him – but she’s going to make it
hard for him.
Vlogger Angel Metzler likes to create content on her two
favourite things – rock music and classic cars. So when lead guitarist Judah
Kallam approaches her at a car show and asks her to do some promotion work for
him, she accepts – and when she notices someone filming them as he’s flirting
with her, she kisses him, hoping this will result in good publicity.
Judah tells her he plans to quit his band Vegas Dreams to go
solo and is happy to get any publicity he can by any means necessary.
Irresistibly drawn to him, Angel agrees to make public appearances with him,
but knows it will go no further – she has made a private vow never to date
musicians, having been let down by too many in the past.
But when the press attention grows too much to handle, Angel
and Judah are thrown closer together and the heat growing between them tempts
Angel to break her vow – but will Judah still be interested when the promotion
is done, or is she just a groupie to him?
Books 2 Read: https://books2read.com/u/3LjDQ1
So what do you like and dislike about the romance genre?
In total agreement here.
ReplyDeleteI've just read 'the Notebook' by Nicholas Sparks and loved it. I think I'm slowly becoming a convert to the genre.
ReplyDeleteThat makes sense. I don’t think I’d like those tropes either. But happy endings are nice for sure.
ReplyDeleteLydia
I gave Nicholas Sparks 3 chances to not make me cry (I don't like crying at the end of a book). And, I am in total agreement with "tears before bedtime".... people, TALK to each other. And "how dare she be a virgin" only works, imho, in historicals where there's a mistaken identity trope also going on. In this day and time, get over it.
ReplyDeleteI can understand virginity being an issue in a historical, but in a contemporary story - definitely get over it.
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