This. Is. Romance. (But I've Been Known To Be Wrong).

[#1]

Hi Michelle!

Great to see you here.

For me, part of the romance contract, even more than the "whentheygonnadoit?" is the HEA--Happily Ever After. I know some urban fantasy and erotica skip this part of the equation, but when I pick up a book marketed as a romance, I expect that somehow everything will turn out right in the end. In this uncertain world, I'm sure of one thing--by the time I type THE END, my hero and heroine will be fully committed to each other and crazy in love.

I don't care if some folk say it's unrealistic. I'm not writing non-fiction. Enduring romance is every woman's fantasy. Why not go for the love of a lifetime?

Plant me firmly in the Happily Ever After column!

Hugs,

Emily

www.emilybryan.com

[#2]

That's 1 for HEA.  Thanks, Emily!  I'm very 'traditional' in that sense, too, when I'm looking for romances to read in my 'off' time, no matter the sensuality level or sub-genre. Obviously, I read all kinds to try to be more in the know than I usually appear.  But I want the break from reality the HEA proves. I want to think:  Yeah, I know he'll forget to take out the trash or start to leave scuff marks every time he kicks the bedchambre door closed w/ his Hessian in a fit of ardor, but I'm gonna block that out cause I can get all that when I get up off this couch.

[#3]

Hi Michelle!

Wow, thank you so much for using me and my Station Five boys in your article! What a thrill!!

Besides the mention of my series, <bg>, I loved the article. And I'm totally with you and Emily on the HEA! Realitic? Maybe, maybe not. (my darling hubby and I are still madly in love after nearly 20 years! So how is romance and the HEA not realistic?) In any case, if I want to be depressed, I'll turn on the news, thank you very much. Not!

Best,

Jo

www.JoDavis.net

[#4]

Hi Michelle!  Put me in the HEA group as well.  I don’t think of Colleen Gleason’s books as romance.  They are awesome stories (I still need to read the last two) but for me since they don’t have an HEA they don’t count as a romance.  But then that’s just my opinion. 

I like my warm Happily Ever After at the end of the story. 

[#5]

Hi, LeeAnn!  I think Colleen's gonna argue with us.  I'm thinkin she'll tell us that Victoria, like most women, just made sure she was good n ready before she gave up her freedom. After all, there were a lot of vamps to be slayed. Or is that slew?  Anyways, I'm impatient. I want HEA but I'll take optimistic if I have to, I just want it at the end of one book. when I'm "in the mood." and thanks for joining us.

Hi, Jo! Thanks for visiting! I've heard there's a romance scholar to be writing a thesis about happiness in the lives of romance authors. Perhaps we should hook you up. Congrats of the FS5 guys n woman!

[#6]

Michelle,

I've thought about this, as I've read over what you've said, and these replies.  Thank you for taking it all a step forward.  Sticking to the main goal of romance.

I'm a thinker, incase it's not obvious,   and I think that most readers of the HEA romances, want this ending.  It's not that I don't, but I want the surprise and suspense element in the story, throughout, dealing with that romance.  I'm a realist, in this way.

It's not really the jumping from one bed to another, into many arms of a lover, as I see it, it's the process of finding the True romance of your life.  The True reasons behind that romance.  What does it take to make it True and beautiful in the end. 

I'm a mystery reader, as well.  I love to sit on the edge of my seat.  I want the excitement of the unknown.  In the same breath, I don't want to be creeped out, either.  I want to play with it in my mind, without being told.  I want suggestions, whether suggestive, or not.  I want passion without it being dumped into my lap as porn.  To me, that's not beautiful.  If I'm a HEA kind of person, I want it resolved as caring and beautfiul.

I think, as far as what I see in romance, is the 'romantic' side of me.  I see 'romance', and being 'romantic' as sometimes two and different spieces, at times.

But, again, I vacillate, it seems.  I do, and I don't, want to know the ending. 

The one book that comes to mind, at this moment, is Gone With the Wind.  I read that book, holding my breath that these two characters would see through their own stupidity.  At the end, just when I thought it would be resolved.....the door slammed shut on that relationship.  It was the first time I'd ever thrown a book across the room.  I hated it.  I hated that ending.  I was so angry, I cursed that author.  Yes, I can get emotional over the written word.  At that time, I wanted that HEA ending. 

But, several years later, I took my husband to see the movie, in all of it's technicolor glory.  It was our anniversary.   I'd never seen the movie before. I thought he'd like it. It was to be a suprise for him.  He saw the marquee, and said, "I've already seen this movie".  Deflated twice.  I give up!  I'm also divorced.    I'll find romance, in whatever I read.  Just be gentle.

Kathy

[#7]

Oh, no, KathyS!  Now you just inspired another blog, the, "Is GWTW Really a Romance?" debate. Cheeky wench!  You're very thoughtful about what you read and seem a lover of things romantic. The way you felt w/ GWTW is the way I felt the first time I read a romance w/out an HEA. I didn't realize the book started a series in which the hn moves fr bk to bk torn bet 2 lvrs.  Here's the kicker: I think either the author decided not to continue the series, or the publisher didn't buy more.  grumble.  Now, my friends laugh at the reason I don't read much suspense on my free time: I'm too impatient and get frustrated that I can't figure out whodunnit. ah well... glad to see you.

[#8]

I'm in the HEA group too.  Even RWA has a Rita category for novels with romantic elements.  Just because the H/h go at it like rabbits doesn't make it a romance.   It just makes it a book with lots of baby bunnies.  ;-)

Marilyn

[#9]

Ah, ha!  A lightblub just went...flicker-flicker!  One thought leads to another, etc., etc., etc.....so it goes,  the storyline....enjoy!

Michelle, the HEA endings are a give-away!  There are readers who read the endings to their books, no matter what the genre, before they start the story.  The suspense kills them! 

Suspense is a process for me.  Some people hate the process.   I love it!   Writing is a process!   An art teacher had told me, once, I loved the process of making art.!   It took me a while to digest this, because I loved my finished work, as well.  Creation is about process!  If I know the ending, what fun do I get out of it?

I do very my genres, depending on my moods.  I very authors, stories.  I love a mix to my life.  Keeps it interesting!

Kathy

[#10]

Hi Michelle!  Good article!  Of course there can be romance in mysteries and other stories but I think the one element that must be there to be "romance" is the HEA or at least a HFN.  I read other genres and sometimes get sttartled by an unhappy ending! Just doesn't leave me with that warm cozy feeling like a good romance!  I have been blessed with a HEA going on our 24th year.  My DH is not so romantic... he'll show me the card at the store instead of buying it!  But we both are okay with how it works for us!  He watches his action movies and I sit in the corner with the light so I can read the romance!

[#11]

Hi Michelle! I found it here, whew!  I'm learning, smile.  I've read romance since HS and mostly I've read those that I discovered by reading them when Fiction was mixed all together with romance, mysteries, suspense, etc.  When I discoved a romance I was thrilled because it was just a feeling of finding exactly what I wanted and missed in what I was reading.  I then would find all those authors books I could by going to library to library to find them!
 

Now with the internet, I've found so much more and thrilled with this genre. I love reading those books that bring so much joy to me and thats romance.  For me its a romantic read, not necessary a relationship but a romance that has that happily ever after ending for me.  I read all the genres in that except for horror (which I don't think I've found a 'horror romance' yet, smile. I love tho all those paranormal romances (vamps and the like!)  and historical and fantasy romance and more! I too discovered Urban Fantasy and really enjoy those and Historical Mysteries.  So most I read is romance but love those two genres too. So its mostly just finding the books that make me feel great reading! 

[#12]

Hi Michelle!  Good topic (Kathy, why am I not surprised you inspired it?).  I'm all about the HEA and, as Kathy knows, I don't mind if it's hot, too!  Luckily, there are enough authors who write in enough different styles to please us all.

One thing I've recently discovered is that I love the tortured hero/heroine.  No idea why that resonates with me, since I'm mostly a pretty Pollyanna type person and my husband is not what I'd call tortured (he may disagree!).  Anna Campbell, Anne Stuart, J. R. Ward -- I'm finding common threads in the books on my "keeper" shelf.

Then again, I read all kinds of mystery and romance.  Since I moderate Mystery and Melanie moderates Romance, those crossover lines between Romantic Suspense and Mystery with Romantic Elements can be a bit confusing.  I was a mystery lover first (I'm a true Agatha Christie addict), reading my first mystery at age 9 and never looking back.  In my twenties, I realized the mysteries I liked best had some romance -- Mary Stewart, Dorothy Eden, Susan Howatch, Victoria Holt, Evelyn Anthony -- and picked up my first Mills and Boon (Harlequin).

I got hooked on what are now called "category" romances but after awhile I lost interest and went back to mysteries.  About five years ago, I started clearing off some bookshelves, and reread some old romances to see if I should keep them or give them away.  I ended up keeping most of them, and decided to try a few more.  

That's when I got hooked on Nora Roberts, and read all of her books.  Then Jennifer Crusie and Linda Howard.  Then everyone else.  And, thanks to Melanie and Anna C., I'm now hooked on historicals as well as contemporary romance and paranormals.  I'm less than hooked on urban fantasy, but I still read it, and I'm a huge fan of romantic suspense (Karen Rose, etc.). 

While I will read a series with a multi-book arc I'm not crazy about the idea.  I love series books where each book features a related character, and where each book has a happy ending.  I am uncomfortable when the heroine has to try out multiple men before she finds her hero, maybe because I found my own hero at an early age (19).  

I read one very popular chick lit trilogy and wanted to fling it against the wall after finishing book one.  Wished I had skipped book 2 altogether.  When book 3 came out, I marched into the bookstore, picked it up off the new release shelf, and read the last chapter then and there.  "Fine,"  I told myself.  "This is the real ending to book one."  And thereby rewrote the whole series to suit myself. 

If there's intense emotion, I don't mind if there is a little heat or a lot.  But mess with the happy ending, and I won't come back for more by that author. 

[#13]

I have no problem with romance being defined as having an HEA. My beef is with defining it as having just "boy" and "girl" (or "hero" and "heroine"). It marginalizes all non-heterosexual and/or polyamorous relationships.  Love is love. Romance is romance. Sex is sex. Gender is irrelevant.

[#14]

Hi Michelle,

Count me in for one of the yeas for HEA. When I pick up a book that touted to be a romance I'd better see that riding off into the sunset ending. When I first started reading again as an adult I was pulled in by all the true crime and other more serious fiction, but when my husband was diagnosed with the big C that all changed. I found that I couldn't read anything that didn't end happily and therefore started reading the end first because even some romance writers don't end there books with happy endings such as Nicholas Sparks and Luanne Rice's Cloud Nine in which a whole box of tissues were involved. I have no problem with romantic suspense, paranormal romance etc as long as the hero and heroine end up having that Happily Ever After ending.

Now my husband is fine and I have gone back to reading hard core literature, but I find that I can't give up my romance novels I've become so attached to the thought of the HEA. And when friends see me with a Harlequin on my desk and sneer I just tell them that there's no such thing as a bad book. I know it's sappy, but with the situations of the world today I say there cant' be enough HEA.

[#15]

Hi Michelle--and everyone.

A romance absolutely has to have a HEA. That said, I enjoy other books with only romantic elements as well. Colleen Gleason's books are their very own category--Urban Regency Fantasy with a long and varied romance.

Kathy, when I saw GWTW, I was so dissapointed (I also was only maybe 10) But I thought--What? This is how it ends? That's stOOOpid (I was 10)

[#16]

Amyskf,

Ha!  Ten, huh?  Yeah, the movie was stupid, I'm sure.  The movie followed the book to the letter.  Maybe I was hoping for a different/happy ending in the movie?  Not sure.  Maybe I'd still be married?  Not sure.......Nope. 

"Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn!"  I had it tattooed on his butt!

(just teasing) 

Can anyone tell me what an "Urban Fantasy" is?  Is it "the grass is always greener over the septic tank " (quote Erma Bombeck),   Or is it "Desperate Housewives"?

Kathy

[#17]

caffey! You genre blender, you!  You say you found what was missing when you found romance, and that's a connection for me, too. I loved fiction, but I always was dyin to have more of the relationship.  It's also interesting to learn that you became very devoted to authors very early.  It's always amazed me how devoted we are to our authors, we romance lovers.

oh , gawd, becke, your chick lit story makes me laugh. I see you in the aisle.  But you hit on something: the idea of not being comfortable with the hn trying outthe many partners because of your own life experiences.  That's a great point. I've had to learn/remind myself that not everyone has the same fantasies, backgrounds as me, and get used to lots of different sensuality scenarios.  It's become educational to learn what some readers in younger demos -- not all -- are comforatble w/as fantasies or allowable dating behavior. Fascinating stuff for anyone who'd think to study it.  And good work on the hero.  

ah, alessia-brio, as you hang here more, you will understand that I very gingerly used that as a generic for the 'love story.'  I also could have used, "leopard/hawk meets fae/daemon..."  Me? Confine romance to 1 man 1 woman? Not hardly.  But today is not the day for my "Boy, O, Boy" post, nor when I tell you about my favorite Regency bi-sexual romance, which I may/may not have mentioned in comments last week.  Nor do I want to jump all "Don't get my wrong, but some of my best gay friends love straight romance" on everybody.  You'll find me writing about every kind of romance I can in this column, just easy does it for everyone's sensibilities as we go along.   I'll look forward to your participation and suggestions of your faves.

[#18]

Michelle - Life experience is very important.  I know that, among my romance-reading friends, the ones who have been through a painful divorce, partly if cheating was involved, will hold no quarter with a cheater in a romance novel.  They do not want to see a cheater transformed, they want him PUNISHED.  Can't say that I blame them, but I'm always a little taken aback by their ferocity.

[#19]

Becke, yes, the tortured heroine/hero, for sure.....I see it now! 

The tortured mind of angst! 

The pressures of the union! 

The steamy thoughts of  the -

will he/she or won't he/she find that lost passion of yesteryear....

lost loves,

lost dentures,

whatever!  Captured in that perfect moment/union of *******

WAIT! 

Something's licking my toes....D**n!  Honey?  Ah...you forgot to put the dog out! 

S**t !

I think there's a link , by gum, between that of being tied to a bedpost over night, as apposed to the bubble gum stuck to it!  

Or---the difference between daytime reality, and nighttime fantasy? 

Am I getting warm/hot? 

[#20]

Kathy -- I'm not going there!

[#21]

good to see you, dhaupt, and even better to know your husband's doing great. So many folks find romance is what gets them through hard times. Post 9/11.  I'm pretty sure that's what got me there, in addition to some women's fiction I'd been reading that I didn't feel allowed for much hope.  It was very hard emotional work reading it, and I had and often still have too much going on in my life to feel pain during entertainment time.  Of course, that pain can be cathartic for some folks.  But for some of us, the reliability of the romance construct and the HEA sooth and satisfy.  You made me laugh cause you remind me of a friend of mine who does the same thing, reads the end of the book before she buys it to make sure it;s got an HEA.

Hi, Amy!  Even then, you wanted more.  I wasn't into romance yet. I couldn't get past the slavery to the love story.   I don't think we mentioned that GWTW actually is taught in Bill Gleason's American Best Sellers course.  I think that's the title of the class.  Remember when his class came to RBTB?

Omg, KathyS. That's SO funny.  Do I have to give you actual, in-print credit every time you inspire another post?  I'll have to check with the B/n.com execs...   I am not an expert on Urban Fantasy (UF) in 'pure' form. Some romances I read have elements of UF.   For instance, J.R. Ward's Black Dagger Brotherhood novels are considered by some to have very strong UF themes because they take place in the contemporary world (rather than an entirely fictional one as in fantasy), yet they have fantastical elements and beings and happenins.  The heroes and some heriones are vampires, evil, soulless guys are the enemies, an alternative world exists...  The city/area they live in isn't necessarily as important as what it may stand for which may, or may not be all humanity, imo, in need of direction or protection in a scary world.  Yet some folks read em simply as romance, which is ok, too. Some folks feel they don't qualify as UF because they believe the protagonist at the center of UF needs to be an "other," the last of his/her line, perhaps, and/or w/out friends or compatriots, etc.  What I will do is have a post about UF in romance with suggestions of books and some info from authors in way more in the know than I.

If anybody wants to add some info, opinion, please help us out!

[#22]

I think the thing you've hit upon, becke, is that romances touch us so deeply, and for so many of us can help us work through stuff.  Sometimes they just touch on stuff over and over. Romance changed my life, helped me look at past abuse I'd already worked through, and encouraged me to reclaime my sexuality in a very healthy way.  I've heard from so many women with similar experiences.  I've also talked to women who stopped reading romance because it became painful; they weren't finding guys in real life like the guys inthe books, they said.  Those couple women were the only I've met who didn't get fully -- or couldn't communicate to me or themselves -- that romance novel relationships aren't patterncards for real life.  But we surely learn a lot about ourselves from them. 

[#23]

Becke, Okay, okay...

I think I hear a song coming on, though

...Yes, it's Franky!

Enjoy the moment!

[#24]

Michelle, no credit is necessary on my account, please!  Just fly with whatever you've a mind to!  I just don't want to overload your mind!  My brain is up for the picking, just as long as there aren't big black buzzards flying around in the sky above my head!

The UF topic sounds weird. (UFO? - Urban Fantasy-Outerlimits?)  Well, maybe not weird, but out of my realm of reading.  I'm not in the Twilight zone.  Ah, in reading, that is.  But I wouldn't mind hearing more about it from those that can explain why they like it - Whatever IT is.

On a more serious note.  I think that a lot of women...I surmise by using the word, "a lot', aren't into the true romance, because of several different reasons.  One, it can show the male in a dominating  roll, and the woman as subservient.  Sort of, "take me, I'm yours to use".  It's paints a colored brush across reality.  "Father Knows Best."

Or some of the violence around that unhealthy romance.  I have, to be honest, read a lot of RN, but majorly I didn't care for the writers.  It was always the heroine being carried up the stairs, with half of her bodice ripped off.....I'd much rather see the guys pants ripped off, but heck,  I'm just a novice reader, compared to the more advanced, avid readers, of RN.  And I haven't read the books/authors that have been listed by readers, here.

Thanks!

p.s.  Please excuse my silliness today?  Too much coffee!

K.

[#25]

Kathy, Kathy, Kathy.

I think you need to get out more girlfriend or maybe stay in more.

I'd have more to say if I could stop laughing.